That Two Per Cent (for A.P.)

you don’t want that two percent
but it’s all they have.

you want that one percent.  
that’s the good stuff,
what the one per cent uses.

the one percent are always thin and happy
’cause they use that one per cent.
it’s not too fatty, still tastes right, looks right,
not thin blue like insufficient skim
but as white as a bride, in fact
as white in a glass
as a tall thin bride.

you don’t know if the bride
could have gotten by
on two per cent.

you don’t remember the city
ever looking so empty.
you don’t know where everyone is.
you don’t know why they aren’t looking.

you don’t know if anyone
will look at the bride the way they used to
when she stood tall and white as a glass of milk
motionless in harvard square.

you don’t know how it happened
that you lost that ability
to make something out of nothing.
you don’t want to keep faking it.
you don’t know how to make it.

you don’t know why no one looks now
until you wave your frantic hands.
you only know the waving of frantic hands.

you don’t know how to stop.
you don’t know how to stop.
you don’t know how to stop.

here comes the bride.

tall, pale, frantic,
notching it up 
yet again,  
yet another

one per cent — 

hell,
two percent.