Harold and maude

You’d have to pretend you have a penis
The curious brown tint in your eyes
Cosigns you to the title male lead
Which leaves me as Maude
Neal Cassidy’s vivacious
New-age mother-in-law
Driving stolen cars in a hazardous slop
Across sidewalks and state lines
Attending every bodies funeral
Except that of her only son.

But being Harold means that you are rich
No more burgeoning student loans
Or scraping by on noodles three times a week
You could invest in a lucrative seminar series
Teaching individuals how to fake their own demise
Hanging themselves
In front of creditors and critics,
Offering the world a refreshed smile
As you walk away from the
Silhouette of your own mock suicide
Whistling out the chorus to a Cat Stevens tune
Leaving all over to start again.



And how we would find ourselves married
By a simple conjunction
Modeling nude for fictional artists
Brandishing banjos between hookah drags
Frequenting local arboretums with purloined city trees
After Motoring around the lush countryside
In a makeshift jaguar-hearse
Stopping ever so often
To somersault or to scream

Ending the day in a duet of piano keys and voices
My Maude offering a dimpled request
To your Harold
Asking him to join in on the chorus

To sing out if he feels like stretching his lips
To be free if he feels like taking a deep
Breath of new way opportunity
Dancing around the living
Room on a Persian carpet
Clapping my hands together like a prayer
Saying “Oh boy, that was fun!”