Might I, if there's one in stock, be sent the
Ralph Lauren Winchester Tote
shaped like the feedbags I've seen strapped on the
fierce muzzles of the horses in pictures
childen are shown to depict
for them how tasks, such as the
feeding of horses, were accomplished in
the Old West. As you
know, the weave of the wool
of the Winchester Tote
is gun—check plaid, so please don't confuse my
order with permission to
perform the background check you would need were
you selling me a gun, Ralph Lauren, or
with the booth where I would check
mine as I would, say, my
coat, entering a restaurant. I would
not relinquish it,
as some would prefer to
hold their fur in their lap
as they dine than leave it in strangers' hands
and what's more, you may not look
into my past, Ralph Lauren, and I will
not look into yours, though I note that the
plaid known as gun—check consists
of infinite weaved stairways
leading up and up and up and atop
not even one small
refined wool landing stands
a screener who would stop
either of us from climbing. Isn't this
the tartan of our clan, Ralph
Lauren? In a picture, I saw your dog,
Rugby, seated in the passenger seat
of your Jaguar and I dream
I'm holding him on my lap
as we're waived through the unmanned tollbooths of
the Jersey Turnpike.
You know the system; we
need not pay until we
exit. Do you mind if I call you Dad?
You can call me "Little Sure
Shot," as Sioux Chief Sitting Bull called Annie
Oakley when he adopted her. And there's
something else called "Annie," Dad;
a complimentary train
ticket with a hole pre—punched through the list
of destinations
is named "Annie" for the
tiny holes she shot through
the decks of playing cards that Buffalo
Bill dealt one by one into
the dusty air and I wonder if the
turnpike ticket in the glove compartment's
likewise pre—clocked. Does it
make you sad to know Annie
Oakley was not Annie Oakley's real name?
Where do we stand when
pseudonyms take nicknames,
like my real father, for
instance, who was born Abraham and called
Dad my whole life and Hank by
my mother was named for the forefather
Abram whose name was changed by God, whose real
name may never be uttered,
as yours may not be, but how
safely written here in the ghetto of
these parentheses
(Lifshitz). (Polo by Ralph
Lifshitz). Often I wake
from this dream clutching an apocryphal
book of the Bible in which Adam
brands the animals. At home in the Ralph
Lauren Home Collection the walls of my
childhood bedroom are painted
Winchester Grey for my real
father's unloaded shotgun that stood for
him in the guestroom
closet. I'm already
riding shotgun with it
with Rugby asleep on my lap in your
silver Porsche 550
Spyder, designed by the first son of the
designer of Hitler's Volkswagen, so
you might as well adopt me.
The top's down and as the wolf
lowers into the Spyder, the Spyder
enters the vein, vain
enters glory and I
enter the country club
with you through the glory hole that is the
hidden opening which that
unseen ball the Polo Player on your
logo is always chasing always just
rolled through. Furious divots
stipple the polo grounds and
I feared the forward waving his mallet
like a tomahawk
until you told me the
logo is based on me
merely hailing a cab. Why, Dad, do you
translate me so tormented,
so raving, driving my muddy pony
with death spurs and blood on my stick. This is
a brutal way to sell shirts.
I've never seen a button—
down as beautiful as the one you lost.
I remember when
you lowered it to half—
mast on Labor Day, but
every day is Labor Day and the shop
(don't make me say your heart) is
open, open, open. The wind flogging
the white flag of your flapping shirt makes it
appear to have a man in it.
