UGH I AM GOING TO STAB MY WRISTS OR SOMETHING ELSE THAT WOULD SUCK TO CLEAN UP IF I DO NOT GO TO A BEACH SOON OR ON A VACATION SOON AND I MEAN LIKE WITHIN A MONTH OR SO. (Also, I wrote this poem last weekend while attending a creative writing workshop at Esalen.)
The time when Gandhi hit on me
In February, Vanessa Fiola met a man
Whom she would later come to know as Gandhi.
Well she didn't know it was Gandhi at first, despite the evidence.
Short, bald, dhoti-wearing man; glasses perched across an ample nose,
A thick Gujarati accent (which she couldn't quite place), ordering
An 8 ounce chai, for here, please.
Because Gandhi is dead. And also because
He was hitting on her.
At first she just thought, "Wow, this guy sure looks like Gandhi," And she dismissed it, the way you might when you See your dead grandmother out of the corner of your eye Pulling freshly-baked biscotti from the oven. "That can't be her," you'd tell yourself. And then you would look again And she'd be gone.
It wasn't until the barista handed the stranger his chai Here you go, Mahatma! To which he replied, No please, call me Mohandas, And winked, That she vaguely considered the possibility That the man, who had now turned to look at her, Could possibly be the namesake of that Robert Altman film. (The one that was really long.)
Even still, on that day, in the middle of February In two-thousand and eleven In a coffee shop in lower Manhattan With the snow falling just outside the other side, Vanessa Fiola blushed maybe a little bit When the small, brown brahmacharya Brushed the hair from her eyes As he complimented her smile.