Happiness

--Lewis Meyers

On the coffin-sized back porch

high above the ground

where anyone worth his salt

pursued his heart's desire,

I didn't know what to do

and asked my mother that.

I was seven. It was August,

the Capital's glandular month;

it came in with morning glories

between its teeth, or darting eyes.

We were in a natural sweat.

My health took the heat off,

but not Baudelaire's boredom

which I wasn't aware I had.

Mother couldn't allay it,

but I thought it must be happiness,

the word on everyone's lips

just before the end of the world.

And I stood on the screened porch,

looking in on the kitchen

while mother made lunch

and Tosca played on the radio,

bored to tears of happiness,

or happily sweating with boredom.