Hot Dog with Mustard

Hot Dog with Mustard

Tara Maple has just come back from the Trash Pile Street Poetry Festival in the next town over and is craving something to eat to clear her palette of the lavish foods prepared by the loveliest lesbian chefs, all diehard Joni Mitchell fans. She could really grow accustom to mornings spooning passion fruit, mid-days choking artichoke hearts, and evenings sucking cold, plum, raw oysters from the half-shell. In some ways, Tara thought, the culinary delights were more poetic than the actual poetics being presented. One of the charming chefs said that if she had to pair Tara’s latest collection of poems with a food it’d be with her preferred and decadent appetizer: warm deviled eggs flavoured with Provolone cheese, brackish bacon, fresh herbs, and paprika, “Unimaginably luxurious and the very opposite of church picnic homey.”

            Her new book simply titled ‘Artful’ receives a standing ovation after her reading its signature poem, ‘God-Given Madness’. She stood before a horn-rimmed, like-minded audience at the microphone and recites from memory:

I cannot tell which is the most tragic

example of inventive intelligence

Vincent Van Goh hacking off his own ear

Sylvia Plath’s death by confection oven or

standing here before you with my own pre-

curated input bucketing out of my dazed mouth

hoping the high price will set a good precedent

for what will soon be known as gradient descent

Tara Maple almost ceases writing poetry after a recent personal tragedy and after such a warm reception she is grateful she keeps pen to paper. She said as much before exiting the stage and the same charming chef tapped her on the shoulder and reiterates, “You must always write, Tara Maple, we need your words.” And, that’s when Tara’s heart rose up into her throat and it has been there ever since or maybe it’s just her hankering for a little bite of something not gourmet. They call for her to knock out one last quick refrain, one more verse for the road; she is the last poet to perform but no one is ready to go home. Instead of reciting something of her own, she straps on an acoustic guitar and regales them with a nippy Bob Dylan cover. Tara Maple, darling poet, most notable for saying provocative but inaccurate things in her work, croons her best ‘Idiot Wind’ while wearing a t-shirt with ‘never trust a rich hippie’ emblazoned on its front.

            Tara Maple has just arrived home both elated and extinguished. She is not as obscure as they believe her to be. Others, based on how they behave in her presence, consider her to be a mysteriously tough nut to crack but she is not. Her dish towels are miss-matched and hang uneven on her oven door, she enjoys hanging her laundry out to dry, and she enjoys bird-watching and rock shows and reality television, some of it at least. But, because she once at a prestigious literary lunch arrived tiddly and quoted Auden amiably, she has been deemed a loose cannon but with dazzling observance, “She’s gutsy, not to be denied. She looks skeptical through her smile but she is most certainly something of an original. You just never know what she’s going to do or say!” This, a direct newspaper quote from a prissy Shakespeare groupie who happens to host the luncheon every year. Incidentally, Tara Maple was never invited back despite a Giller nod. And what did she really say that was so avant-garde anyhow? One of the laced collars clutching her new Victorian romance to her generous bosom addressed Tara Maple in front of everyone in attendance, “Frankly, I don’t understand a thing you’ve ever written.” And that is when she dispensed the Auden quip, “Real poetry originates in the guts and only flowers in the head. I’m trying to reverse the process.” Lace Collar’s face froze in a vacant stare, “I beg your pardon?” Tara Maple threw her head back in jest and laughed, “My work here is done.” It should also be noted that she wore a Pearl Jam t-shirt under a fancy blazer to the event and stuck out like a sore thumb amid the twill and tweed. Come as you are, the invitation said, so she did.

            Tara Maple has just returned home to her humble abode from a glorious weekend away. Drunk on kinship, wordplay, and accolades, she’s hungry. It is her ritual to unpack her overnight bag, start laundry, run the vacuum over her big living-room area rug, change into something clean and head out for a brisk walk and a nibble. She crosses the road to take the scenic route to the town square, left on Jaden Street and a sharp right onto Wentworth and then straight.

            Tara Maple loves coming back. She loves making this walk. The town square, surrounded by a shimming blue ocean where the sunlight dances its diamonds clean, the local shops and grocers laid out like fluorescent dominos, the plush playground where neighboring children frolic and giggle, and then there’s Stanley’s.  She approaches the food cart with its bright red and white umbrella inhaling the familiar aroma. Old Man Cartwright is leaning heavy on his whittled cane giving Stanley a hard time, “I’m telling you this right now Stan, if brains was gasoline you wouldn’t have yourself enough to run a mosquito’s motorcycle half way ‘round that there dime!” Stanley is a gentleman; he puts Old Man Cartwright’s food in his hand, nods and forgoes payment. As per usual, Old Man Cartwright gives a growl of a thank you and carries on with his head down. Stanley greets his next customer with a beaming teeth smile, “Tara Maple Tree, what can I get for you, a hot dog with mustard?” Tara Maple smirks and motions toward the simmering meat in the briny water, “Yes please, Pops.” Stanley blows is daughter a kiss, “Poem for a frank?” Tara Maple nods and breaks into verse. A crowd collects. Tara Maples is happy. Tara Maple is home. Understood.

***

Writing just to write, that’s all this is, really, writing just to write. Nothing more, nothing less.

In propinquity,

Nic