The Waist Band
Apologies
I. The Burial of the Unread
April is the cruelist month
yet, fearing death by toilet,
I learn to trust the shadows
cast by this porcelain friend
who asks little of me,
and so I oblige
while penciling the names
of the unread upon rolls of
Charmin Ultra Strong.
The sound of flushing…
music to my ears.
II. A Game of Egress
Everything’s a number, babe.
Everything’s a number.
Driving a 1990 Suzuki Katana
on New Mexico State Road 187,
on the seventh day of the week,
in the fourth month of the Gregorian calendar.
ignoring the eighty percent chance of severe thunderstorms,
from the ominous black cloud
thirty-three thousand feet above his head,
came a bolt of lightning, striking
the 2022 GoPro video camera perched upon his
five hundred dollar Shoei helmet
and we all sang good night ladies,
good night ladies,
it’s time to say goodbye.
III. The Liar Sermon
Sit down!
Weeping will not help you.
Again, where are your papers?
Killer dolls, huh?
Why not leopard dolls?
Why not tuna dolls?
Why not ragdolls?
His brain,
refusing to let the thought pass,
dribbled out a moan,
a sound so pitiful
even the dolls wept in accordance with
the law of synchronization.
IV. Death by Jerkwater
Saint Luke of Antioch,
a gentile,
or a Jew,
or maybe Jew-ish,
whatever,
was,
in the eyes of true believers,
an historian of the first rank.
Eight bodies and nine heads,
located in different places,
some of them jerkwater towns,
like Booger Hill, West Virginia,
are claimed to be relics of Luke.
V. What the Boy Wonder Said
We who are dead salute you,
the living dead.
London Bridge is
falling up, falling up, falling up.
London Bridge is falling up,
my fair lady.
Shantih shantih shantih.
