the mahogany a wornout horse
I know it’s stupid, but I think
Jerzy’s going to appear one night
we’re all gonna sit here and talk
him and Cooper and McSorley,
Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson,
maybe the fat nude, too
On the bustling sidewalk
as the last gray light slides
between concrete walls
I move brokenly, madness
a hunched raven on my shoulder
behind Dean & DeLuca’s glass
the elegant consume
and defecate elsewhere
invisible yet ubiquitous
I shit on dark corners
urinate with the feral
apologia to Lowry
but I am his pariah dog
still alive in the ravine
howling, quietly howling
Educated with the elite
Stuyvesant then Yale
in the Seminary I became
a brother of inculcation
so I taught God’s children
the nun Betty and I
fell in love’s despair
we quit our vows to marry
we ate acid
quickly madness won us over
with fists we fought
our words weapons of delight
Betty took a train to
somewhere, leaving then
this tunnel in my brain
a small black smudge
with their pills the shrinks
would me heal a hole
At McSorley’s I swept up
for simple cash and food
washed pots and pans despite
the burgeoning smear
which one night
blotted the running bullshit
leaving the mind a nub
where the raven pecks
I am searching the streets
catching the last sliding light
on my hunched form
the pariah dog is here
is here somewhere
Call me Jimmy
I’m not fat, I’m obese
nowhere to hide, pal
but I learned something
people love you
if you’re real fat
I mean, really huge
you save them
So I got my first job
in Coccia’s on 7th Street
Italian sit-down deli
Jewish actors from Second Avenue
Ukey Moms from the block
laborers, clerks from Wannamaker’s
number-runners an’ schoolkids
you know the years
how they quietly roar by
I was the best short-order guy
ate like a champ
then Artie sold the building
Two doors up was the saloon
busy lunch an’ lazy afternoons
nights packed with young guys
J.J. the owner knew me from when
I was a kid, burned my arm on
his ’48 Buick, Irish guys laughing
that fat kid in the photo, that’s
me, walking by the bar in 1950
Stampalia the chef had just died
announcing lunch
he’d sound an old bugle
this time his aorta blew
I got the job
old guys in the bar whispered
but I was big, fast, an’ funny
no bugles, just Jimmy Fats
I won ’em over with laughs
I loved that place
In the doo-wop band
I sang lead, us guys
from Aviation High
we cut some songs, never made it
Joey overdosed on skag
Lou got married with kids
Willy stepped on a mine in Nam
me, I kept cooking an’ eating
McSorley’s in the ’70s
me & an’ Frank the Slob
we humped it all
Ray the waiter, then George
he was the best
took care of everyone
workers, cops, students, firemen
we played nags an’ numbers
then George quit
oldtimers died off
Frank’s fuckin’ bitch drone began
waiters coming an’ going
the only sane ones
Minnie the cat an’ me
Shit, I was up to 630 by ’79
when I fell in love
Lace was beautiful and big
so we starved an’ screwed to 260
after the baby, she got mental
nights she cried a lot
it sounded like me far off
but I can’t remember when
One black night I woke up
Lace was gone
note said she went to L.A.
that was it
I don’t think it was love
just some kind of lonely thing
fat people get
Still, I was McSorley’s chef
I was 500 an’ floating
little Tanya screaming
Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!
raising a kid alone ain’t easy
the fucking dog Blacky
big Lab, shedding
hated the heat he always did
I was on the throne when he
ripped her head halfway off
broke her neck
the funeral was like Ma’s
at Lancia’s on Second Avenue
next to the old 21 Place
the guys from the bar
murmured condolences
shook their heads
if Lacey hadn’t run away
if I hadn’t been on the shitter
if, if, a million ifs
Back at work
Frank’s fuckin’ bitch
became a foul mantra
nothing to say nor do
that’s when I began
to eat
really eat
I couldn’t get out of bed
fucking buzz in my ear
a numb hissing