### How to Identify a Love Ham What we call the "love ham" is not metaphor. Deboned, smoked, spiral slice, at the roadtrip's horseshoe curve bought in an aluminum walled shack two miles past the EZ Stop which, this 9:30 June Saturday morning, a classic car meetup congeals balding or ball-capped men (only men) before what is inevitable-- convoy of sharp points, chrome plated spick-spanning the one red-light boulevard of an Appalachian town most famous for bacon. Revered and vacuum sealed, shipped to Manhattan, to Paris. Here I now am, jaunting between jowls and pork belly. It's my surprise. She's in New York, no clue. Watches Broadway's glam rock vampires, considers MoMA brushstrokes not altogether different than the brush that layered brown sugar and pepper flakes across this hog's hind. I buy it because I love her. Saccharine displays are what one wants once gone four days with their sister and plane delays. Arrival just before bed. No affection contests vague or otherwise, please. For an uninitiate to pork splendor, a smell unlike any other waves when a polite red-bearded man allows you, you alone, accompany him-- bank door of a barn door creaked open to a palmed, orchestral applause of freezer fans. Behold them like terracotta soldiers guarding an emperor's sacred mercury river: alert by the thousand, hooks on wire each hold country ham. Infused with once living smoke and carbon of hickory tree. In a dim cold vault, all of this. He says pick what you want. No two alike. No two the same. What love is is this: in the dim light choosing not from sight, but scent, for another. ### **Addendum with Joy** _O,_ the sound of a boy on the phone letting his school crush know, _O_, he loves how she totes a small toothbrush on her every trip to the stripped-down mall. What new joys they unearth with turned corners on a ten-dollar bill: No, not much, just two cuts of ‘za, duel pulls of trading cards. Twelve quarters consumed – he watches her snarl at the clearly rigged claw machine. _O,_ now he’s broke, that boy. He was me, clueless as a catfish with two front teeth. If I could go back I’d tell him being there and being square are both fine options. He will learn, _O_, to love again and again and again – what size rock cracks lover’s window, which bouquets beget Benadryl, how many petty, penniless jigsaws a heart becomes rain walking home in spit-shined Nikes. Now I saunter for new offense: “Banned for Life” from the Golden Corral in Cookeville, Tennessee. I overabused the chocolate fountain. Dipped my eggroll, my steak. Waiter one, clairvoyant and gentle, said “sir, that’s for deserts.” Guardian two insisted on a code of sensible conduct by which I must abide, but abide not would I – mixing my pintos proved the final straw. _Strike Three_ roared the dean of Corral #399, out he punts me, cites “overindulgence via corncob.” But my people, _O, my people_ of America’s finest dining establishment swarm, answer the call, storm the silky chocolate waterfall. The dean declares martial law. Lasagna coated floor, soft-serve piles like autumn leaves. For a cascade of sugary cocoa, frenzied becomes a republic, and the heretic I am strolls on, chocolate corncob gripped, my bliss Hershey-dipped, my singing called up from the vocal abyss, _O,_ timeless aural joy streamed from my lungs. _O,_ I plan no agenda. _O,_ I may place fifty bucks on a four-team parlay. _O,_ I may, my fortune to make, I may make my fortune, _O_ may I make that fortune ### **How to Steal a BMW Radio** Some new stranger and I in a dentist’s parking lot, betrothed by Bavarian hood ornaments – Why should I love you? And, yes, new friend, your luck roosts: I know a rope or two of German engineering – mine all black, 1998, sports package, odometer stuck at 232016.3 for ten moons, yours shaded like favorite spoon. What are your odds? I _do_ know how to get _that thing_ unplugged: pop this wood- grain lapping the door panes, plastic snaps synapse like gumdrop doorknobs two days past new years – screw _here,_ rivet _here,_ smooth and down comes the glove box. Yes, they make it this difficult on purpose. Unplug blue from blue, red from red, white from white, _write this down_ _no need_ – radio wires desire themselves. To reassemble go backwards. Lucky you got me leaving a friend’s across the street. Doctor’s note, slipped disk, she can’t lug luggage from car trunk to door. July noon heat easing in her bay window, full water jugs tucked in fridge back until later days. We drive each other. She tells me _stop falling in love_. I won’t.