Background Check
or, Online Dating and Why I'm Fine Single
For William Carlos, so much depended upon a wheelbarrow, rain, and a chicken.
For me, it's a flyswatter, some fish, and a speedo.
I depend so much on what I see, not in the center, but in the periphery
of photos potentials post on their online profiles.
Forget the physiques in the foreground; check out the facts in the back:
the plastic poinsettia scotch-taped to a wall,
a titanic tv screen submerged in "Fox News,"
Betty Boop's butt decaled above a light switch in the bedroom.
Details lurking in the shadows beside, behind, beyond the flirty faces
repeatedly, repeatedly, compel me to delete:
the Tupperware mountain cascading down a kitchen counter
onto a cat's collapsed carrier,
a wadded washcloth wedged between faucets
and the spot-splattered mirror
capturing him, iPhoned, at his sexiest best—
Delete
How do I know I don't want to know him?
Let me count the ways:
two unidentifiable animal pelts hanging
from an aluminum shed in this one's yard,
a remote-control clipped to that one's shirt
while he's fast asleep on the couch.
(Who took the picture?)
nine sports trophies perched above his head
(He's sixty-three.)
Delete
a blue flyswatter pasted to a wall next to four fish photos,
one warning, "Stop Looking at my Bass,"
another informing, "Old fishermen never die.
they just smell that way."
Delete
an elk's head mounted above the washing machine
(Who includes a laundry room photo?)
a plastic wastebasket geyser at his side
gushing crumpled paper plates
nine rifles aligned on a picnic table in the garage—
Delete, I repeat!
four grills on his Trex deck,
like sentinels surrounding him whose hairy arms
barely make it across a barbecue belly;
a "Dog Waste" bucket behind the bike
on which he balances,
thirteen Green Bay bobble heads on a bedroom dresser—
Delete
t-shirts, towels, socks and briefs flipped over a wire fence
in the backyard where this one poses,
a leather motorcycle vest dangling from a door knob
decorated with thirty-two pins and badges;
rotten bananas at his elbow near the fruit bowl on the table
Delete
three taxidermic trout on a wooden mobile
suspended from the ceiling,
six plastic model cars and trucks
in a plate-free china cabinet,
a speedo on a fishing pole
planted in the sand
where he's beached himself
under an umbrella
sipping a beer.
Delete. Delete. Delete.
