John Margolies, Orange Julep, Route 9, Plattsburgh, New York, 1978
Color transparency, 35 mm (slide format)
Digital image courtesy of the Library of Congress
The truth is, little has changed.
I am in the deli again, setting records about pastrami sandwiches.
The waitress knows my name & my order.
It’s nice to see me again how are you.
Yes with a side of Russian Dressing.
What you eat in private you wear in public.
I’m not as fat as I think I am, my friends say.
They say I should just have sex with someone.
They say I do the sadness to myself.
My friends glory in their sadness & not one of them has thanked me for inventing it.
Everything I do is thankless, & so I must continue.
You shouldn’t be able to pinch an inch.
Each day I wake up & make choices.
I swear I’ve been unloading pheromones since I got in here & I can’t even get the check.
Being a sex person is easy—you just have to put it out there.
I’m more of a deli person—I prefer to put it in here.
Each day my choices wake up.
Pain is weakness leaving the body.
Lifting the sandwich like The Book to my lips.
Every bite: the first, the last...
To be touched by no one is to touch God.
It has nothing to do with my body.
So let the locusts come, & let them come.