Buttered Toast

By Chris Miller

A gray wintry Saturday, waking up late
Thelma and I shiver beneath torn quilts,
with bits of white fuzz poking out.
I chatter "Fuck, it's cold!"

and wonder whether the heating bill's paid.
Grateful, I remind myself that a lumpy bed
is better than a back alley or no bed at all,
so we stay there, lacking in better diversions

to pass the time, just another humdrum afternoon
of yawning contests or a TV festival,
perhaps another wall-staring marathon.
More ambitious than me, Thelma gets up first

and offers me some toast. She asks, "Buttered?"
I say, "Of course -- one of man's last luxuries is buttered toast."
It's true. Buying a mansion up in the hills
is out of my price range.

I cannot afford a bright red Dodge Viper either.
The same can be said for a quality stereo,
a sailboat or a good piece of tail.
I don't believe in unconditional love, Jesus, politics,

vitamins, horoscopes and anything I hear on the radio,
but I believe profoundly in buttered toast,
its significance in the whole grand scheme of things.
Despite her many imperfections

I am pleased to have Thelma now,
clean and feminine, wearing nothing
except her exquisite white panties
as she retrieves toast and tea for my morning breakfast.

In the sunup solitude I hypothesize that in the very near future
men will do nothing at all but sit around in dank rooms
eating buttered toast, waiting.
I have come to a profound realization

that if there is such a place as heaven
it is full of beer waterfalls and whiskey-filled swimming pools,
with nary a hangover the next day.
I also imagine warm comfortable beds in every home,

a luxury car in every driveway
and non-predatory women with hourglass figures
but, most importantly, in my own personal utopia
there's buttered toast for everybody.