National Interests

Down King Street’s rope lit restaurants and Christmas decorations

we maze underneath lobby canopies, by antique valet stands

faces half-turned from blinking bulbs as if cameras grew in bushes.

What is this obsession? Everybody slapped in the face with morals.

It makes me tint my windows, fret iron bars across the glass.

Nowadays newspapers need to stay more relevant, more dangerous.

Why go outside? Use restrooms whose stall doors touch the floor.

Everyone writes a column. Can trip into a gossip rag’s payroll.

It won’t be an amateur’s drunk-luck, but creeps propped atop a wall.

My hand on your thigh underneath your skirt, and the gist of it

beneath the table, is just some of the best dirt that’s fit to print.

Because, here, we are living the lives of near-assassinated people,

So, when I tell you not to be affectionate. I can’t yet. They know me.

They’re friends of my wife’s somehow. It’s in our best interests.

It won’t be long before whatever feelings we share makes to a screen

or into a lens. Whoever we happen to meet isn’t aiming for corridors

of news outlet. And you're not talking either, an age of online

autobiography, of self-portraiture, how you keep our exhibit closed.

It will happen. Walking out the bar, handing the man the half-ticket,

standing at the curb beside the colorful wine-list blackboards,

because it seems the most natural thing, I thoughtlessly reach for you.