Friday, December 24, 2004
Bad Italian Restaurants
Here's a little poem I wrote after having had a less than lovely experience at a local trattoria, which will go unnamed.
BAD ITALIAN RESTAURANTS
Fake troubadours warble
opera over the cheese shaker,
the pamphlet of wine, the grease
blot from a ball of meat. I won't
apologize for wanting eggplant
instead of veal, for giving
the maitre d's eyebrow its arch,
as I rearrange the quaint candle
and plastic rose, wait for the salad
of Caesar's pink anchovy, limp
over rusted leaves. It's enough
to turn a stomach to thoughts
of a bus, to escape the upholstery
of chairs and checkered cloths, splotched
with eternities of reckless saltimbocas.
BAD ITALIAN RESTAURANTS
Fake troubadours warble
opera over the cheese shaker,
the pamphlet of wine, the grease
blot from a ball of meat. I won't
apologize for wanting eggplant
instead of veal, for giving
the maitre d's eyebrow its arch,
as I rearrange the quaint candle
and plastic rose, wait for the salad
of Caesar's pink anchovy, limp
over rusted leaves. It's enough
to turn a stomach to thoughts
of a bus, to escape the upholstery
of chairs and checkered cloths, splotched
with eternities of reckless saltimbocas.
