Page 23 - Contrast1979v22n2

Cleaning the Lasagna Pan

Remember when we stole your Winter
roommate's mother's lasagna?
Calendars measure. The rip of February
We took that and the last 2 cans of Hawaiian Punch From the wall repeats inside me.
on a dark afternoon when you
swept away the snow and ice and The discontented winter wears wanly
turned yourself into Don Quixote. In the final flared flurry of flakes,
Spanish grandeur & illogical escapades And March is here - to where?
beat like imprisoned bluebirds against
The discontent, once posed merely,
the insides of your eyes. Marches into spring, even
We snuck off to the borrowed car As undifferentiated things die.
to listen to your father's CB.
With the elegance of Midevil knights we mixed Harold M Grutzmacher
cold lasgna and trucker's slang
into all the quests that lay before us.

Here I am
the Lady Dulcinea in a faded college T-shirt
cleaning the lasagna pan.
I traded in silver swords for Brillo pads
and reduced reality to it's proper grimness.
I wait here
pressed between the back pages of Family Circle
for you to remount your Datsun
and carry me off
to a land where Hawaiian Punch tastes like champagne
and somebody else
does the dishes.

While I wait for you
I see life for what it is,
a windmill that splits dreams on it's blades.

Nancy Menefee 21