The Lover I Need

will score equally well
on artistic and technical marks
but not care about either.
She will spot flattery easily
but be flattered nonetheless, choosing
not to let a good word go begging.
She will sport shirred boleros,
Winnie-the-Pooh boxers, and imitation Birkenstocks
bought off a hapless Guatemalan peddler downtown
whom she couldn’t, she just couldn’t
refuse. In her heart of hearts she would never
ever think the phrase “In my heart of hearts.”
She will know her Wittgenstein cold,
and I’m talking the Tractatus here,
not the “ordinary language” dreck of later years.
She will wear brand names but disdain labels,
think about irony as if it were something
to be solved by thinking about.
She will have all of her teeth.
For lunch, she might or might not eat
with her boss, who will be fat
and sloppy and not stand a chance
against someone like me.
She will know there is no one like me.