your pizza

without passion, like most professional athletes
who wear stoles or ridiculous chinchillas befitting only of Phyllis Diller,
you knuckle and knead like a substitute teacher teaches.
and your lack of fervor is evident with each successive bite I take.

your slouch-shouldered, knock-kneed technique.
your blasé ingredients.
pats and dough-sprinkles delivered with teething baby acuity.

haven’t you ever thought about its origin? Naples, Rome.
maybe somewhere surprising. Crete perhaps.
then over to the boot, where it was later perfected.
how about the utopian tomato?
was it fare of the workers or aristocracy?
or maybe the murderously delicate Mediterranean sun;
did you ever noodle around with that one?
Apollo’s rays unleashed upon the Seven Hills.
sandals and thick granite.
semolina fields wavering to Orpheus’ lyre.
Hannibal-tainted skin and olives of the same color.
ample women wearing careful smiles leading obedient kids to the table.

i want a large Anne Sexton.
a T.S. Eliot with half pepperoni-half Etheridge Knight.
your pizza is a roses are red, violets are blue poem.