The Brautigan Question [poema]

Careened on the hand-me-down couch
Slowly sinking into a misshapen beachhead of cushions
I was reading a slim volume of early writings of a dead poet
When my wife came into the room asking,
“How does it feel to wash your balls with a city?”

Well now, that’s a question fraught with foam and froth
One must take into account all sorts of surfactants
Then I recalled that someone had gifted her
A soap in the shape of the Emerald City
All green towers, minarets, and flying buttresses

I closed the book and put it down, knowing that nothing
The dead poet had written up to that point in his career
Was going to measure up to that question
I thought about it for a second and had to admit
“It was nice.”