-An early résumé to a potential employer-

That day:

I had the pick of two astonishingly heavy
hospitality-type chairs, girth-wide, rigidly

upholstered to last into the next decade,

slightly angled toward one another for

no reason whatsoever, squatting before a metal,

utilitarian desk, behind which sat a guy, far younger than me,

rummaging through a short-stack of what may have been

the forms of applicants.
"I'll be with you in a moment."

Everything else laid upon the altar of his desk seemed
disarmingly orderly and senseless.

This résumé:

I enjoy a cold beer on occasion, and I like

listening to the opinions of Robert Pinsky,

Luciano Berio, the participants of dreams, Michele Goldberg,

the old Portuguese guy across the street, and Charles Bukowski.

I like a change of seasons to go along with my geography.

I like rainfall when hearing it from the inside, but especially

from the outside, tucked into small-city doorways.

(That appreciation is carried over from

c.1959–– a Main Street downpour with Gina Prosciutto after the movies.

We'd wait it out, then eat Chinese across the street at the China Royal)

I liked the scent of kerosine-fired heat in the morning,

its pungent scent of fuel, and anyone who tells me they enjoy

the acid stench of wood-burning stoves has a screw loose.

My father was a Teamster,

my mother a card-carrying

member of the I.L.G.W.U.,
but they didn't have to fight for any of it.
They just signed their names,
paid their dues and went to work.

That day:

I accept that nowadays I’m not very adventurous

and that an inherent knowledge of my youthful,

pioneering spirit is enough to get me through the moments

whenever the doldrums appear with their colorless faces.

I’m a white male with below-average upper body strength.
I'm left-handed and played the game that way.

I believe now more than I knew then, that

Lucy Ricardo was a conniving, outrageous

fiction of a woman;–– that

Laura Petri was reduced to a pleading wimp,

begging hubby for a few bucks to get a new hairdo;–– that

Alice Kramden was heroic,

and after all these years, June Cleaver still pisses me off.

Now, about those vacation days...