Summary
After the speaker realizes that all the portraits he has seen appear faceless when compared to his lover, he goes on to list works of art compared to which his lover's face is preferable. Perhaps the only painting that is even comparable to that of his lover is the one in Rembrandt's The Polish Rider, but then he remembers that this artwork is in the Frick Gallery, which is hard to see anyway. Better yet, because his lover has never been, the painting's existence only provides an opportunity for something to do with him. The speaker moves on to describe how the way in which the lover carries himself is so graceful that the fast airplanes and automobiles beloved by futurism fall by the wayside. Neither Duchamp's Nude Descending A Staircase nor the drawings of high Renaissance masters Leonardo and Michelangelo could better occupy the speaker's attention. Even the the Impressionists pale in comparison, because "they never got the right person" to model for their masterpieces. The Italian sculptor Mario Marini made the same mistake when he selected the model for his 1936 work, The Rider.
The speaker, determined that he will not be "cheated of some marvelous experience" as these great artists must have been, decides to tell "you," which could ambiguously refer to both his lover and the reader, about this moment in time, in order to remember it for himself—and, implicitly, to turn this experience which is greater than all art into art itself, namely, the poem we read.
Analysis
With the exception of The Polish Rider, the speaker refers to the works that used to "wow" him the past tense, suggesting that the image of his lover has risen above the place that great works of art used to occupy in his mind. He doesn't think about Duchamp or Leonardo or the Impressionists anymore, but only his lover's face: however, the value the speaker places on visual art is not challenged by this realization, but changed. In other words, his firsthand knowledge of art affects his perception of his lover, while his lover forces him to consider these works of art through a new understanding of beauty. This knowledge of art makes the sight of the speaker's lover richer: it testifies to his assurance that the person before him is a marvel, and the moment they share warrants recognition. This moment, like the moments captured by painters, could be monumentalized forever.
In the second half of the poem, the speaker abandons metaphors or similes as he describes his feelings for his lover. This absence suggests that nothing compares to his lover or the way the speaker feels in this moment: there are only images that may be used to reference how this person is unlike (and implicitly better than) the artworks the speaker mentions. As a result, the speaker carves a space for his love between these great works, both in his mind and in the brief map of art history he presents. Because of this technique, reading "Having a Coke With You" is like seeing a work of art through someone else's eyes—only this work of art is a human being.
The last line, when the speaker clearly articulates his motivation for writing the poem, parallels the casual, conversational nature of the speaker's afternoon, maintaining the intimacy of this moment while allowing the reader to share his experience.
