The Michael Toy

Poems and Other Programmes


conundrum luncheon


tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich
the soup must be the horrible canned kind
the stuff of warhol's dreams
that doesn't taste anything like tomatoes
and the sandwich must be crushed while grilled
so that the yellow cheese oozes out

it makes complete and total sense,
that if you pick ripe tomatoes
and cook them with fresh herbs
that would have to be better than the canned stuff

who in their right mind would prefer
that squashed oozing object
which looks like roadkill
to a thick lightly toasted hunk
of crusty sourdough
and aged new york cheddar

and yet i would rather eat the inferior
version, the canned and processed
the-same-as-everywhere-in-america
and feel the glowing warmth in my soul

that other thing, no matter how
organic and bursting with flavor and energy
only makes me weep for the lost chance
to eat the real thing

it is because of this meal that i know
that the things that matter to me
do not always fall from the tree of logic

which is why, even though it makes no sense to me
i really can't blame people for voting republican

Path: More Good Poems