I wish I could be like, Hey, you intrigue me,
and she'd be all, That's so flattering,
and I'd say, Well, can I see if there's more than meets the eye?
and she'd pretend to get offended, and we'd laugh,
and I'd be all, But, seriously, and she'd say,
Let's go to my place, but can we have sex
before getting to know each other? It was a rough day,
and talking could be a bad first impression,
and then I’d say, You complete me. Let's move
to North Carolina and raise song-writing physicists
with ‘NBA or Bust’ Sharpie’d on their sneakers,
and she would always say, Yes.

Salinger, God rest him, would agree up until the end.
He’d tell me that it’s too closed off. Ambiguity!
he would scream, is the essence of the ending!
If I’m still kicking when Hollywood decides
how history will remember Holden, I’d build bombs
in prevention, turn MGM into a mushroom cloud.
Otherwise, that scene near the end of the story,
where Holden prays to Allie, asks to be kept safe
from disappearing— Actually, I’d steal the first “L”
from the Hollywood sign and dedicate it to a girl.

Women are sort of a one-shot deal sometimes,
when she smiles and he smiles back, his heart’s
drawing her as a Hepburn, and the only comparison
she can conjure is Eddie Murphy, but that grin
only works for him. In another world, she’d tell him;
she’d say, Hey, why’re you making that face?
and his eyes would roam the room for something,
anything to say, resulting in a response along the lines
of, Ha, yeah, I’ve got this cavity that’s killing me,
and, somehow, it wouldn’t draw the desired effect,
but she’d smile and roll her eyes to reel him in,
as long as he didn’t seem like a creep or anything.
You’re not a creep or anything, are you? she’d ask,
and if he’s listening, instead of whipping up whatever
he thinks she’ll think is clever for the moment,
he’d show her that he’s full of savoir-faire,
and he would always say, No.