some richard brautigan for you
"At Last Our Bodies Coincide"
At last our bodies coincide.
I'll bet you thought this
would never happen. Neither
did I. It's a pleasant
surprise.
"Milk for the Duck"
ZAP!
unlaid / for 20 days
my sexual image
isn't worth a shit.
If I were dead
I couldn't attract
a female fly.
"Star Hole"
I sit here
on the perfect end
of a star,
watching light
pour itself toward
me.
The light pours
itself through
a small hole
in the sky.
I'm not very happy,
but I can see
how things are
faraway.
"It's Raining in Love"
I don't know what it is,
but I distrust myself
when I start to like a girl
a lot.
It makes me nervous.
I don’t say the right things
or perhaps I start
to examine,
evaluate,
compute
what I am saying.
If I say, "Do you think it's going to rain?"
and she says, "I don’t know,"
I start thinking: Does she really like me?
In other words
I get a little creepy.
A friend of mine once said,
"It's twenty times better to be friends
with someone
than it is to be in love with them."
I think he's right and besides,
it's raining somewhere, programming flowers
and keeping snails happy.
That's all taken care of.
BUT
if a girl likes me a lot
and starts getting real nervous
and suddenly begins asking me funny questions
and looks sad if I give the wrong answers
and she says things like,
"Do you think it's going to rain?"
and I say, "It beats me,"
and she says, "Oh,"
and looks a little sad
at the clear blue California sky
I think: Thank God, it's you, baby, this time
instead of me.