soup

la brea

you take the day off and
decide to go with her to the lacma.
“they only call it art because it’s stuck up there
and no one can get it down,” you say.
okay, so you don’t get it, that’s fine.
we don’t have a lot of experience with italian artists,
outside of antonio banderas,
and the only thing we know about sophisticated peoples
is that they cross their legs on the toilet.

but then, framed just a few inches off
from being perfectly centered above a trashcan
and somewhat blocked by a guard’s left shoulder,
there’s a painting that you finally, finally lose yourself in.
you have one of those moments where
you look back on all the moments of your life
and can see how each one contributed to you
being in the exact spot you’re in right now,
the kind of feeling people get when they find themselves
eating alone inside fast food restaurants.

before you head back home:

1) you to your studio apartment in the valley
and your in-bed-with-the-flu roommate,

2) her to her twelfth-story loft downtown,
filled only with boxes and some of your things, and

3) tom papa to television,

you convince her to see the tar pits one last time.
once inside (it’s free!?!), you try to find a bench,
but they’re all taken up by businessmen and women
in rumpled suits and pantsuits
on their lunch breaks,
from the office buildings down the street,
their cars in paid monthly parking garages,
petting heavy,
talking about their pets,
forgetting about their significant others,
fighting for their lives,
like those tragic elephant statues and…
you should check out the koi fish inside
(this is all true, especially the part about koi fish–
go there during lunch sometime).
“that tar smell will stay with you forever,” you say.

you’re on your way back to the car
and already know that you’re about to have
the most intimate conversation of your young adult life,
in, of all places, a mini cooper.
“people don’t change, but they change for the worse,” she says…

you roll down a window and
look off into a completely cloudless sky,
the sun still high above.
it’s seventy-five degrees and january.
out in the distance,
you see the goodyear blimp, circling… circling what?
before all this, i honestly don’t think you had any idea that
there might actually be something notable
on the othe side of those mountains.