Buddha and the Seven Tiger
Cubs
Holding a varnished paper
parasol,
the gardener—a shy man off
the street—
rakes the white sand,
despite rainfall,
into a pattern
effortlessly neat,
meant to suggest, only
abstractly, the sea,
as eight weathered stones
are meant to depict
Buddha and the hungry cubs
he knows he
must sacrifice himself to
feed. I sit
in a little red gazebo and
think—
as the Zen monks do—about
what love means,
unashamed to have known it
as something
tawdry and elusive from
watching lean
erotic dancers in one of
the dives
on Stark Street, where I
go on lovesick nights.
Even in costume they look
underage,
despite hard physiques and
frozen glances
perfected for the ugly,
floodlit stage,
where they’re stranded
like fish. What enhances
their act is that we're an
obedient crowd,
rheumy with liquor; our
stinginess
is broken. When one slings
his leg proudly
across the bar rail where
I sit, I kiss
a five dollar bill and
tuck it in his belt.
He's a black swan
straining its elastic
neck to eat bread crumbs
and nourish itself.
My heart is not alert; I
am transfixed,
loving him as tiger cubs
love their
mother who abandons them
forever.
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