Tom Waits is on the stereo, a beer’s
in front of me. I’m dicing chicken breasts,
and you’re still at the stylist’s getting some
relaxant for your hair. But it will come,
the beggar’s prize, the dirty penny of
the moon, tonight’s romantic trope we’re wise
enough to fool ourselves with. Bubbles rise—
within the thumping pasta pot, the flute
that cunningly impounds the sparkling wine
I’ll pour for you, the space between our ears
where everything engenders: making love
beneath the trees, the scents of earth and pine,
the softness everywhere our hardness rests,
the whispers, vows, and, somewhere high, a hoot.

© 2013 Tom Zimmerman

The Big Windows Review 5 (Fall 2013)