Two friends over a Chinese lunch, whose most plebeian eggdrop pretends the menu's Imperial Soup like a homely son named Galahad, we strip the wrappings from our words. Terror is the flavor in her mouth. The doctors say, "Cancer." All her thoughts turn ferrous to that magnet word and she dreams an older man - frost at his temples but heart cocoa-warm - to rock her tears and kiss her well. Out of work, my bag-lady fear seeps from under the shine of dish covers - another course. I want to curl up, a little girl against a dense tweed fantasy who'll pay the bills and bauble me through Tiffany's. Our manticore, composed in equal parts of Daddy, the well-aged eye of a distinguished Scotch ad, and childhood's gray-bearded God, can no more succor us than the sweet nest of our fortune cookies can hatch any bird but flightless bromides. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LOON ON FORRESTER'S POND by HAYDEN CARRUTH SUPREME by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON PICKING AND CHOOSING by MARIANNE MOORE HOMAGE TO SEXTUS PROPERTIUS: 5 by EZRA POUND THE WALKING MAN OF RODIN by CARL SANDBURG |