sometimes you wake up
in the morning
and you think
about everyone who didn’t

you think
about that kid you knew
in the 8th grade who
died a couple of years ago
at age 58
from a massive coronary
on a golf course in Gulfport
and you think
about that girl from
Duluth…

…the one who wore
that very tiny
green dress
to the prom
and you wonder
how she’d look
today
if she hadn’t
drank a 4th
Tom Collins
at the North Star
that night…

…AND

(you think of)
the girl from
East Hennepin who was lost
and presumed dead
on Lake Erie
in a storm
about 23 years ago
(accompanied by)
her husband,
…the sailor

and you seriously
think about
the priest
who married you to
your first wife,
and how he must have felt

when he died in an avalanche

in Yosemite
three years ago
and you wonder why

As you are staring
at that face in the mirror
with the whiskers
tinged grey
and
you wonder
if you’d look like
Hemingway
if you grew it out
or

if the damned thing
would just get the best
of you too

Libby
who moved
to Sun City
to live with
her 3rd husband
a retired driver for
Consolidated Freightways
told me that she
recently
found a coiled rattler
near her pool slider
and a scorpion
sleeping on the gravel path
alongside her garage
and she suspected that
wild animals had
infected Demetrius’
food bowl
(her Pomeranian)
and that Nip’s
water dish
(her Siamese)
was compromised
in some way
so
she said that
the lifestyle
that she had imagined
when she was a girl
growing up in
Manhattan, Kansas
had evaded her
and now
as she approached
age sixty seven
her expectations had collapsed
due to the uncertain
and turbulent
housing market
and the unavailability
of jobs in the
hospitality industry
and she told me
quite discretely
that she suspected
anti-government activity
in the desert south of town

When it’s late at night…
… 2:45 AM
and you listen to the wind
blow through the palms
on Singer Island
and the wind whispers to you
saying,
that the past
17 years have been
a commercial success
in spite of it all,
remember that,
the damned,
fickle, late night wind

is:

Lying to you
telling you that
you really haven’t lost
3 homes to foreclosure
and that your position at the
brokerage —

the one that was arranged
by your cousin Sid
was simple destiny
yours to use or abuse
and the time that you spent
incarcerated
for two and a half years
was just time
owed the pensioners
for your sacrifice
at the hand of the
consummate professional,
the ultimate Satan
although it resulted…

…in the destruction of
your constitution
…the dissolution of
your marriage
…the demolition of
your soul,
(although not necessarily
in that order)
but in the end
your time
in Federal Prison
was a walk
in the
proverbial
park

When there is nothing left to do

but to write about it,

you’ll know it — because:

The locks must be changed,

and you’ll find the keys to the Subaru,

in the mailbox,

and the flower bed,

has been desecrated,

with a sharp instrument,

and the last flight to Philadelphia,

the one that departed 20 minutes early,

is now over Cincinnati.

It’s then you’ll find:

Your driver’s license

book marking a page in

Nabakov’s Quartet, and

you’ll find your Certificate of Live Birth

mixed with the unpaid bills.

You’ll find Captain Crunch cereal

in the dog bowl.

You’ll find crumpled cigarette packs

in the freezer,

and refried beans from the Taco joint

in the blender.

When there is nothing left to do

but to write about it

you’ll find out that:

Your attorney is under indictment,

your physician is in restraints,

and a politician of lofty stature,

is called a war criminal.

And you’ll read that:

A young man died last night,

downtown,

with a gun in his hand,

while an old man wandered off,

to die on the tracks.

And some young girls have gone missing,

and more soldiers have died,

while insurgents have been repelled,

and rebels have been armed,

and more dusty capitals defended.

Losers have suffered heavy losses,

while the winners toast their gains.

And in Hollywood, California,

a has-been actor died yesterday,

of remorse, bitterness, and old age,

his body carted off to the County morgue.

And there’s not a damned thing left to do

but to write about it.