Day 10 - When Romeo meets Juliet

It isn't often that I have occassion to thank Metro-North for train delays, but this morning is one of those rarities.

After reading 15 pages of Nabokov's novel, Pale Fire, between Stamford and Port Chester, as my train mournfully crawled past a defunct relative, a dead engine on the tracks in Greenwich, I found myself more focused on my immortal contribution to verse than ever before.

Here are today's crazy developments:


Takaaki entered my life as a leopard
Belt that was unbuckled at the Y.
We had not exchanged a single word
Apart from the perfunctory, “Hi,”
One naturally nods when in the shower—
Never letting eyes fall any lower
Than chin, if necessary, collarbone,
Careful to leave your ‘well enough’ alone—
Lest anything unseemly rise to blur
The steely line of bubbles separating
Really clean from curious—thus creating
Questions about conditioners, and whether
Grapefruit is a proper manly scent—
Even in a Thought Experiment.

My eyes were hooked by how that feline belt
Crept through the four tight loops above his rear;
It filled me with four-letter words, which spelt,
“Don’t ruin your Moon trip.” What a weird
Injunction—poetic, perhaps—but it
Bears no relation to immediate
Concerns here, in this crowded locker room:
A place as cold and moldy as the tomb
Where Romeo was scheduled to greet
Juliet, when Fate’s feather intervenes,
Crossing out the dancing in those scenes.
I sprinkled fungal powder on my feet,
Discretely. As the Lotramin descended,
I wondered if his buckle was befriended...