The Big Why

I found my love of the word
was that of a lifetime
while working at a deli
with strong Christian overtones.
Having to dress like a Mormon baker,
stuck in a Borgesian labyrinth
of asking have you heard today’s specials
and the Good News?
while percolating up this glut
of passion and thought
and I can’t stop slicing ham
long enough to write this fucking sentence.

To feel like an enlightened Buddhist
in serious financial debt.
Held in a Plexiglas cell where
you can’t do more than watch Law and Order reruns and
you haven’t bathed since Sunday and
you’ve eaten pasta for a month straight and
you haven’t beat off in a week
because you’ve just lost interest.
And I take this to paper
and I roll off the couch
and I wash the itch out of my beard
and I buy real groceries
and I can finally get it up again.
So I quit my job and told myself:
poets are like lovers;
the best ones are men of leisure.