Sweet Lovin' Baby

Unpublished. The Museum of Natural History used to have honeypot ants in a display. The lyrics (italicized) are from Laura Nyro's "Sweet Lovin' Baby."

Source: Alex Wild Photography

Sweet Lovin’ Baby

Content could I be, is she, honeypot ant,
replete, a clinging chandelier
swollen with pleasures not her own,
condemned as she is to open her mouth with
the same sweet tale to all with spare change
& a soft antennae tickle there’s gold in you darling

On stray rained streets beggars’
change cups call up the damned
on their cellphones –
hell hath its own area code but spotty coverage
so they all shout at once
for what they have been starved of:

one last undulled desire
still clinging to their bones as ragged finery,
risen but risible,
a golden cup looted from the grave to hold
nickels & coffee;
their arms around me bend & beckon, ‘ahh hungry.’

‘Well what do you feel like’ I stall badly.
Their groans hesitate;
so turning who can follow much less return –
a hand may reach into a velvet pouch
to retrieve not gold but broken glass
where is the night luster

Death breaks up the call, comes swaggering
past the swaying bodies agape & blind.
Death always knows what he is having for lunch
& where.
I wave my arms desperate to tell
past my trials sparkling in flight

pale pathetic regret: I never saw
Laura Nyro’s Christmas show down at the Bottom Line
& now too late any times over too late.
Death’s eyes fall on me, empty
of mocking & pity both; he unfolds his hands
in a spill of shattered glass, says only
‘Open your mouth.’