Parietal Poem Poem by Alexander Hawkins

I offer something different, a fricassee of easy life
where even the ugly people are attractive
and real beauty floors a crowd. I didn't ask
for the guide book when it was my birthday
but it was in the Amazon box all the same.
The pages are mostly stuck together.
Half of what I can prise apart is in Sanskrit
and the other makes no sense to me.
I don't think I want to remember
the last few months; I can't remember
them anyway. The details I can remember
sure, the facts and shapely figures
but I cannot recall the feelings, the gritty stuff,
the proper memories, the things you
are expected to remember, demanded to.
Instead I have a few migrant thoughts:
how I prefer the thought of bacon
than the actuality of it,
how I prefer the thought of you
than the actuality of it. And that's the key
really isn't it, ‘the crux of the matter'
as my English teacher's catchphrase went.
The stink of the hot pot swells the senses
but it's too hearty a meal after years of morsels.
And who are we to moan but mortals?