I like to watch night time talk shows,
my darkened living room bathed
in the soft light of the television.
I don’t do it
for the way the host stands
on the balls of his feet, hands
in pockets jingling invisible change,
keys, shrugging off joke after joke
after newspaper headline, the
trickles of prompted laughter from
the hidden audience.
I don’t do it
for the band, that mass of
sunglasses-at-night men at attention,
wrangling gnarled tubes of brass,
the big grin of the gap-toothed
keyboard, the drummer adrift
in a sea of symbols, taut skin,
gleaming metal.
I don’t do it
for the guest, elegant,
refined, stationed upon
a couch that seems out of place.
(I wonder: does anyone sleep
on that couch? When the lights
dim, breathing warmth long after
the host returns to his sleepy,
terraced home in the hills, and the
audience meanders through
the streets and alleyways of the city,
does the janitor set aside his mop
and bucket, place his tangle of keys
upon the desk, next to the coffee cup,
and lay down, hat shading his eyes,
to catch a quick nap?)
I watch
these late night productions for
the commercials. Well, not the
commercials themselves—-I can
only be told that I am overweight
and under-sized for so long—-but
for that moment when the host
announces the advertisements,
and the camera pans out, the
roar of the attendees and the
groove of the band drowning out
the voices of host and guest. They
lean forward, in a silent huddle,
mouthing lost words to one another.
I lean forward too, pressing my
face against the static dust
of my television, wondering what
secrets he is telling when
the microphone is cut, and he is
expected, for once, not to be so
damn funny.
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