Poem: Wake

First published in Eye on Life Magazine

Wake

Combustion ballet in the Arctic ether we

take our pins and poke the balloon,

screaming at the gunshot like two-year-olds.

Would do something but the

chore wheel carries six billion names.

Perhaps we will grow webbed feet,

gills, the rapture, life’s too short and

busy and hard, have to, get into,

children, right schools.

Your children have razor sharp

nails that claw at the sky and

they get them from you.

Shards of balloon fall from the

sky like pancakes. We will

do something about the time that

the Pacific breaks down our doors,

drags us into the streets and

puts us under.

Ask with our last breath who

knew, who knew

From the collection Fields of Satchmo

Photo by MJV