WEBVTT

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I was in a relationship
with someone

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who was a little bit
younger than-- well,

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a lot younger than me.

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And for the most part,
age really didn't matter.

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Except periodically, there
were cultural references

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that would just get lost.

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And we were taking a drive down
to Santa Cruz one afternoon.

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And I was having
a good time, and I

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said, oh, it's like clams on
the half shell on roller skates.

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And he said, what's that?

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And I said, it's a line
from a song by Chic.

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And he says, but
what does it mean?

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And I thought, well, if
you have to explain it--

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[AUDIENCE LAUGHING]

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--but I tried.

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This is called "Meditating
Upon the Meaning of the Line

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'Clams On the Half Shell On
Roller Skates' in the Song

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'Good Times' by Chic."

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Even the business of dying
must be set aside occasionally,

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glaucus winged goals drafting
the last ferry across the Bay,

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lights of the city growing
more luminous, more inviting.

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Who could have guessed
love's a palpable thing,

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a dark splotch of
kelp in the shoals,

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or a mountain lion that prowls
the edge of UC's cypress woods,

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desires a young student, ivory
mandible slack and slavering,

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at the amber hour,
snarls its empty bowels.

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Touch, that sensation
I'd almost lost,

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or how to curl into another
body, hermit crab style.

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The grouchy old man in my
mirror said, bare terror, said,

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who's sharing your towels?

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Go away, you bitter cuss.

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It's still 1980 somewhere, some
corner of your dark apartment,

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where the mystery of
the lyric hasn't faded,

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and love is in the chorus,
waiting to be born.

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