Feeding Myself

“Life is a banquet and most poor bastards are starving to death!”
    ― Patrick Dennis, Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade

The girl on the float waves
over the heads of the cheerleaders,
her tiara twinkling under
the stadium lights, and above her
the moon and stars so faint
I might have imagined them.
From my perspective leaning
at the fence way past the end zone
she lives an abundant lusciousness
of storebought mini skirts,
pearl rings, and her new red GTO.
The indifference of fate that’s brought
us passing each other in the hall
means that I can torque my future
differently than in another century
where I hid in a tree above
her father’s banquet, salivating
at the fruits decaying and wasting,
while small animals fed on
bones I would have gladly chewed.