A simple pimple 
calls all its cousins 
from an Italian Catholic clan 
and parties on your face. 
Now you’re a pepperoni pizza— 
grease, cheese, red sauce oozing 
from your skin, mooning

over June Martin who’s broken 
your heart again, her rich fistfuls 
of raven hair locked around a luckier 
boy’s fingers, her bright scarves 
knotted precisely for him. You take 
her notes and pass them to the one 
she’s freely chosen for free

ice-cream floats and banana boats. 
Frozen sweets. Sweet delay 
before the maraschino cherry’s eaten. 
Your heart’s broken but will grow 
back again, stronger, stranger, 
like the Blob or the Thing or the diced 
skeletons among the Argonauts—

like all monstrosities, willful 
and hungry for all the toppings. Thirteen 
and you’re a pizza man: black olives, pepperoni, 
mozzarella clogging your pores. On the other hand, 
you skin’s oiled, alive, desire swimming 
over your face like schools of anchovies, 
little silver tongues fresh from the Cote d’Azure.

This isn’t funny, for you. 
Suicides beyond the mirror 
of the medicine chest, detonations 
of self-regard, still bury 
their blackheads in your cheeks. 
I know there’s light at the end 
of the tunnel, even if it is ambulance-light,

disco-flashing, livening up a black 
humorist’s party. This comedy 
is my salary, my tip, 
as if I were the pizza man delivering, 
in under 30 minutes, the one thing 
to feed you before your hunger 
consumes you. Meanwhile,

someone’s suffering, changing 
into a new hand that fits a new glove, 
a new voice that fits a new register. 
One day, you’ll be like me: 
deep-dish pizza, Greek 
olives, Feta cheese, and artichoke 
hearts, which, at the moment,

might as well be Greek to you— 
subtle, slightly yellowed hearts, 
almost laughable, hidden under folds 
of spiny leaves and hairy 
green I had no idea was there,
no idea how to undress 
when I was thirteen.