Have Yourself

Have Yourself

Jurassic, era of choice.

Wading in the evertropic,

chomping on chlorophyll when some

Tyrannosaur cuts you off and in

fact yes the middle finger is the

digit of the 21^st century.

I play the archer in an ’86 pickup.

You have not in fact severed my

arrow finger and I will now

pierce your Firestones with a

flick of my wrist.

The present day is a hydroplane, a

turbojet, we no longer have

watches we have phones that

order us around and don’t even

do laundry the bitches.

Laptoppers fill the coffeehouse in

perfect schoolhouse rows, facing

east like morning glories.

I tap my baton on the

podium and begin the

overture to Giovanni.

The hours ramrod past.

I am Orion with a longbed and a list:

Restore Anne to the ancestral couch.

Follow Janine’s U-haul to Pacifica.

Chase the Pleiades across the sky.

Drive Nina to the airport

(She dreams of Paula,

turning to ashes in Phoenix).

The errands go to the lucky ones.

I sit at my window, dining on

unemployment stew, watching the

neighbors dodge lightning bolts.

Nina calls from baggage claim.

Paula’s in a coma.

Floyd’s gone, Sandy’s in chemo,

Nadine’s lost her house and

Lois is losing her mind

(Ellen dreams of Phoenix,

who is not a city but a cat).

My hand on the truck door.

A white dot bores a hole in

the crushed velvet it

might be The Asteroid.

Or Venus.

From Michael J. Vaughn: Collected Poems

Notes: Life is stressful, and sometimes the disasters come in sixes and sevens, but when the disasters belong to everybody but you, it's time to write a grateful poem. Better to be the consoler than the consoled.