Champagne and a ribeye, that’s the ticket,

Beethoven’s string quartet in C# minor,

and good riddance to another plague year.

The mind can provide, provide,

and theories will continue to propose

themselves in politically incorrect seminars

in which ardent young men declare

the whole study of aesthetics may be

divided between Titian’s “Venus of Urbino”

and the fashion industry. Nor is it just

a luxury, this taste for delicacies, this

indulgence in beauty for its own sake,

these academic escapades and linguistic

adventures that may eventuate in

a poem of delight, desired and deserved.