What I’m Whytching in the Pfister

Concierge Peter suggests

we all need to practice

“whytching,”

watching our surroundings

while wondering why,

or how is it like that?

To behave like the elated toddler

who discovers everything is dimensional:

it can be crawled over, pulled, pushed

bitten and unraveled to reveal

what is at the end,

and why it was rolled up and put away.

 

I whytch the herd of twenty blue hoodies

with grey sweat pants slinking past,

every one of them six feet or much taller,

calling out to each other in male voices

aged by two decades of Gatorade consumption,

I know because I see a bottle of it

through the mesh of their backpack pockets.

I don’t have to harass them with inquiry

to surmise that they are a college basketball team

and that the man of middle years accompanying them

with shirt and pants made out of sweat fabric and drawstrings

is their coach.

Whytch the flowers being rolled in on a cart,

the lobby’s living color changes most every day

I wonder does this change reflect the mood

of the florist and then become the hotel’s mood?

Or does the mood of the hotel determine

the florist’s choice of the flowers?

Either way it does not feel as emotionally purple here

as it did yesterday when the flowers all spoke violet.

Whytching reveals patterns.

There’s Joe with his coffee and subprime mortgage lecture at the bar again!

There’s Monette who comes here every week for the caesar salad,

though today it appears she is just having a tall glass of water

and an earful of subprime mortgage talk.

 

Practicing whytching is imperative

for excellent eyesight,

c’mon, stretch your eyeballs out

and learn:

lanyards = business conference

leather satchel = business lunch in the café

backpack = brief overnight stay

sunglasses walking down the hall = leave me alone I am famous

red tie = high achieving business person (usually man)

 

Whytching demands theorizing

yet suggests no conclusion,

life is learning, death is knowing

maybe

I have never been dead except

when I fail to whytch,

when I grumble and pucker,

staring at the skin on my arm

without seeing the hairs, pores, freckles,

the mysterious red spots

or appreciating the scent of wrist.

Wrists smell in their own way

unlike anything else.

Just whytch.

 

Someone takes the steps,

climbing two at a time

dipping the tall reed of their person

in rhythmic appreciation

of this marble terrain.

Someone else runs up the steps

with swift anticipation

for a new location,

an urgent duty,

to be not here

but there.

Those who practice whytching

generally acknowledge

she who types on the landing (me).

Those who love whytching

more than anything else

will hand me a hello.

 

Let’s make a pact:

don’t be too fast for manners

and I won’t be so slow

that I preach,

instructing you what to do

except, please,

be whytchful.