Ode to the Poems of Ross Gay

forgive me; friends, Ross Gay, unsolicitedattentions, lovers of chocolate, great god but pleasestop whatever it is you are doingcartwheeling down the streettangling in the reeds with lovestaining your lips with the juice of birdshit winelet me offer instead chocolate whichis to say, pleasepay me attention! I have newsfrom front of house, i bearfruit, have watched myselfstriptease off my vinyl glovesto press my palms againstthe steely vats ofmelted chocolatethat radiate with a heat which coatsyour hands impossibleto repeat alone, I mean to saynever have I ever felt so warm,in any summer or superior flushof steam from the grate keeping meabove the metro and the petalsand it isand i do notsay this lightlythe best. Even betterwhen the thirty-something customerwearing his i love unicorns teewaltzes in and takes mefrom my burning fingersto the cases where we keepthe truffles and as iassemble his 24-piecebox asking if the food will be a gift and ifhe needs a ribbonhe mumbles beneath his breath, somethingto the tune of archeryand when i askcould he repeat himselfhe says   orgy, i am goingto an orgy , and that he’s signed upto bring chocolate and no,a ribbon wouldn’t be appropriate. Whatto do but laughall the walk home,knowing that evening i would putmyself to bed and fall into sleep imaginingthe partygoersstuffing their facesfull with trufflesknees weak before the holiday feast.It’s one more feelingwithout a name, using your handsto feed the peoplewho will feed each other.So thank you, tooto the heat that allows me, and hearths,and free association, and why not to you,love, whose drifting off beside mewhile i lie awake chuckling to myselfwill be my most likely refuge:i can win the small victory of who can remainconscious longest, i can finda way to spin stayingconscious longestinto a victory. And there your thighresting against the apricotof my knee, and now ithink of next week’s dinner,and that span of years in whichmy family would repeat almostto exactness the same ritual, much as youand i do now dear, with my rest alwaysmore a struggle to come to thanyours at leastthat’s what i keep telling myself herein total darkit becomes possible to realize that everythingi mean to say of ross gay’s poems i meanof you, as well. to demonstrateif i say i’d liketo wake up, pivot, and find myselfgazing upon the countenance of Ross Gay’s catalogof unabashed gratitude i’m liable to privatelybe referring to yours.But also if Ross Gay were to hear thisit would be worth explainingthat i say such a thing knowing affection,at least, to be more trench than sinkhole.which, written a second time, keeps coming out tomaybe it wouldn’t be so badto admit i too love unicorns . And when the holidays arrivedwe would carry the lamb outof the oven and rub it stickysweet with chutney, pile goldenorange fruit around it, halve them,let them open so not like a wound. I’ve done thiswith the few i love, and more than once, duginto sweetness, on somenight prior to but not unlike this one, andwith the lights on surely you musthave seen the scar, some injury sustained in youthcarried like a sack of rock across aquarry of holidays, little bird, but you’re asleep now,it’s certain, I can hear the snores pick uplike wind-chimes beside memy favorite part of america has shutitself inside that commune known asdreaming, goodnight my lovely, my sleepmust find its way, gratitude outside the gate.