Sitting next to Kat at the library
trying to convince her to drive me
to San Francisco will buy her dinner
in Chinatown & give her some gas money
 
She’s looking for a cheap dentist
& a cheap optometrist
& a cheap pair of glasses
& a cheap pair of shoes?
 
We’re poor but content
working-class  with tired laughs
eating at soup-kitchens
& raiding food pantries
 
this is part of the heart
of  America now
this is my life now
library refugee

love among the stacks
sleep among the facts
breakfast in the wilds
stranded reprimanded
like a child

-- GP

###

*Note: A little explanation required here. My friend Kat is Chinese-American. Female Fire signs could see blossoming social relationships in the Year of the Dragon, including romantic ones. Sounds familiar. Hence the Year of the Dragon flag.

I was born August 27th 1950 (Year of the Tiger). Apropos of nothing except perhaps this little anecdote: The other night just back from Los Angeles I was walking from the Safeway down N. Santa Cruz Ave. when a drunken woman on the other side of the road yells: "Hey Tiger! Wherever you're going I'm going too!" I just laugh. "Don't laugh!" I keep walking.

The next day she shows up at a street corner by the Town Plaza. She reeks of alcohol. She's not an unattractive blonde maybe in her late 30s. She starts in about her father who abused her. Angry & psychiatric. A wonderful combo.

"Can I buy you a beer & a dance up at One Broadway?"

"Okay. But then you have to pay for everything else!"

"Whaaat? No thanks. See you around..."

Not that any of this actually matters. Like the man (i.e. John Maynard Keynes) said: "In the long run we're dead."

Too bad people can't seem to get it together before Grim Reaper Time. We die angry dumbfounded sometimes accepting sometimes kicking & screaming.

====