Hard Work

Tricky work sometimes not to smell yourself,

ferment being constant—constant as carnival sweat

(a non-stock phrase I palmed from a girl from Canada,

a land where I once saw this graffiti: life is great).

And I have tasted myself, especially when I spilled

sinigang all down my arm in a Pinoy workers' caff

in Little Manila. I drank sinigang (is soup drunk?)

in Big Manila too, with all its dead skyscrapers.

Seen myself? In looking glasses or, looking down,

stocky as a shift working cop, maybe a Mexican cop

full of beans (frijoles, I mean, not vim), paunch full

of sopa de vigilia, pulling over a sozzled bus driver.

Heard myself speak fluently in my own language,

have heard myself too described as hard work

(as hard to get through as Scotch broth), though once

someone rather bladdered told me I was magnetic.

And I may as well admit that I have touched myself

(who hasn't?). In a forest, on a train, in New York

and Paris with unparalleled handiwork, sinning   

as I go, merry as an office boy spooning onion soup.