Are You Pablo? written for Nerve.com November 2005

this was written for Nerve. Writers were asked to write poems about a recent purchase...

Are you Pablo? The one I called on my cell
When I was at the downtown store, earlier
about the velvet jacket in greenblue?
They told me to come here, to 5th avenue
Kenneth Cole, past the first floor of women's shoes
in a shiny row of toes that gleam
like an orderly hatchery of genetic
poreless replacement noses for Nicole Ritchie
and upstairs to this tier of tailored masculinity.
Pablo you look marvelous in this clear almost mint-scented light
served to me from the seams of mirrors and tables rigged to underglow.
You are the friendliest seasonal mannequin ever.
Thank you so much for saving me this last tiel piece that apparently flew from the downtown store nestled in soho.
Here we are above it, up along the wasitline of the new Manhattan:
An entire lively reef of price points.
We circle it like seagulls,
politely, remorselessly hovering
over a limited amount of clam meat to slip between our dry beaks.
I have no choice but to dip my card into overdraft.
To hock perhaps twelve working hours of my future life for this soft off-blue persona that I risk despising in a year,
when I see it worn in too many style tips
starring actors desperate to claim their permanence.
I only hope that in the years to come,
this purchase is more about the pleasure of this transaction.
You, Pablo, more wearable, are my hope of a paid-off memory.

November 25, 2005