Palace of Amenhotep (or 20th Century Elegy)

No pharaoh does miss his kitty any more
than I miss the dive bars of Chicago, 1998,
wood-paneled, red-lettered, dank and cozy
as confessional booths, with a single, knobbed
television in one corner and a geriatric
in a respirator ad on mute between innings
then I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I couldn’t imagine
my face affixed to a breathing machine,
I’d say to the cigarette machine, yanking
hard, and out bounded a pack of Camels,
but I could’ve, I could’ve, I could’ve
imagined it if bleating youth could’ve
permitted more than obsessing over other
people’s underpants, primetime dramaturgy,
shooting Old Crow until 4 a.m. home
to the cat I called Amenhotep, and not
in honor of the guy. Good old Amenhotep
would’ve gnawed my nose clean off
if she’d caught me on a savannah
instead of our great apartment enflanneled
as it was then by loneliness for a whole year
that lasted seven years, so I really felt much older
by the end of it but not any wiser, Amenhotep
ever indifferent to my every want and affection,
and affection is what I wanted most
to give as the century ended like a dynasty
into a perfect ruin where I am, to this day,
gutted, wrapped, and doggedly intact
as a cat in a cat-shaped coffin.