Viva lost wages.

That's right: this time tomorrow I'll be in the air headed for LV with a friend who's turning 40 this weekend. A colleague is covering my final on Monday, when we fly back, and I'll be here to administer my other finals. Technically, it's hooky. But if not now, when?

I've been before; my girlfriend's parents live there, and we customarily stay with them. But my friend and I are doing it up right by staying on the Strip at TI--used to be Treasure Island, but now (ooo) it's TI. Luckily, I don't have the personality Vegas was designed for, and I don't make enough money to want to gamble large (or small) portions of it. I'll be pushing it if I spend $75 gambling. Quarter slot machines are almost too expensive. And anyway, I'd rather spend $40 on a semi-classy buffet than on blackjack, for instance, which moves too fast for this boy. My friend is a big roulette fan and will spend hours at the table; I may join him for a few rounds but will soon seek the sanctuary of a vodka tonic.

I've written poems about Vegas before. Even in the midst of the booming, sanitized, corporate Strip, it still has that desperate, frayed-at-the-edges, overeager vibe about it which (for me) is a good place to begin a poem. Here's one which attempts to do justice to it. The genesis wasn't really Vegas but the fact I wanted to write a poem in which I could rhyme "Caesar's Palace" with "Caesar salad."

A good weekend to all.

***

The Shops at Caesar’s Palace

Vegas: poster child for addiction,
spokesman for the perils of being sexy.
Our last night on the Strip, we hailed a taxi
and severed ourselves from our predictions.

Faux canal, faux gondola rowed by a faux gondolier,
faux wedding, faux vows vowed in a faux gazebo,
sugar rush of the insoluble placebo,
faux atoms floating in a faux atmosphere.

In the café, we wolfed a Caesar salad.
I dwelled on that gray-faced lady who’d won
five thousand dollars after playing just one,
so we ducked into the shops at Caesar’s Palace

and bought with our hearts new suits and shoes.
We felt the pounding of a construction project.
We watched a robot princess genuflect
before a heatless fire and pray to Zeus.

We walked beneath a simulacrum of the sky
which darkened as the day darkened—art
imitating life. Only the truly cruel and hard
have learned how to defuse the stimuli,

how to walk unmoved down Las Vegas Boulevard
and pass right by the giant Celine Dion,
how to write it up as just so much neon.
We went inside the store that looked like a deck of cards

and came out with a bottle of beer each.
Were we sad or happy to be leaving?
Were we glad we’d come? Were we breathing?
Would it be easier if we were rich?

I can’t speak for her, but I sought credentials—
not the jackpot, exactly, but a certain carriage,
chutzpah, confidence, dumb courage,
the myopic swagger of the presidential.

We toasted: to the fountains and piped-in strings,
to promises, to the desert air swelling with sound,
to the girl wobbling past us in a wedding gown
and high heels, crying, wide-eyed, and singing.