JOKER

A carpenter in the service
of an inheritor is easily lulled
by the wealth on loan.
A bartender’s dream
is the precise execution
of talent, her stage
the expensive room.
For the retail salesperson,
discount and opportunity
herald having already overcome.

At the edge of town, they
consider privilege beneath them,
while challenge is the strong suit
of the joker, self-deception
through mimicry his aim.

Here is my plain face:
my neighbor’s dog
is digging a hole
in the dirt to wash off his bath.
This gag gathers laughter.

In the final scene, when sea fog
retreats from blanketing the chain,
it doesn’t travel far. It sits just north
in the gulf, where fishermen
punch no clocks and see
sky and sea as one
as they paradoxically ply
the obvious edge.

SEAL OF THE CITY

Here at the new settlement
myth is what we work for.
Blue is the color we wear
and yellow is the water in the well.

Imagination is our hard respite
and the birds in the trees are one of a kind: loneliness.

Our law, like love and lust, is liquid,
penned and implemented by impulse.

Our punishment is invisible– unless
you are one of those who hold up
after reading it a page to the light,
studying its perforations and what resemble
in opacity the mackerel-clouds so foreign
to our climate. In that case
it is merely transparent in relation
to the cinder-block walls that keep
and protect the light and joyous moments
of the inventor of our decline.

HANDSOME-FLESHED HEROES ARE HARD TO FIND

The rough-hewn
tongue-and-groove
ceiling planks
suggest us.

Mahogany blossoms
dust the porch
as a wasp pesters.

I’m nectarless.

The pool’s cool.

The ceiling fans
keep time from heat.

Our leading lady’s
on leave
from suffering.