When did they get rid of the iron?

Do Not Pass Go,

do not collect two-hundred dollars, it’s jail

for you my friend, just down the street

from Oriental Avenue where a decent

bird’s nest soup can still be found if you know

where to look, that shabby stretch of robin’s

egg blue in the shadow of the slammer

where I’ll come visit unlike the top hat and 
battleship.  Sidle on over to the

open fridge for some candid advice,

an enumeration of their treacheries

while you buy us a beer and refill my plate

with shrimp empanadas.  Did I happen

to mention your choice of the thimble

is commendable, a token of protection

against pricks and unscrupulous wheeler

dealers up and down St. Charles Place, spiky 

caveats of confidence men buried

in the fine print along the Reading Railroad line. 

Maybe I’m just a broken down old boot

but troubles afoot once you pass Free Parking.  

The wheel barrow with her insipid small

talk, those close set eyes, has designs on  

autumnal Kentucky Avenue clear

out to leafy Marvin Gardens, our

old stomping ground, the deed to Ventnor

rounding out your meager portfolio

of utilities and Baltic Avenue. 

I’m prepared to offer you freedom in

a transaction sanctified by mutual

trust, sealed on little more than a handshake.

Forty dollars and my Get Out of Jail

Free card for your stake dividing my own 
Atlantic and Marvin Gardens, a stone’s throw

from my humble holdings on Boardwalk and

Park Place where you’ll never be a stranger,

at a rate reserved for my dearest friends. 

contemplation

Fire Drill

Time spent, just the two of us on the bathroom

floor

after everyone else had exited with all

the aplomb of bagpipes exhaling one

last, droning breath, (not to mention the piercing

klaxon bray that drilled burr holes in our heads

until the school secretary switched

it off), was pastoral.   Tile and water

trickling from the balky flush valve of a

no nonsense urinal not unlike the

nothingness of a Zen garden tended by

prostrate monks, our heads wreathed by tonsures of

silence, the sand and stone behind the wall

of your skull in eternal disarray

under the rake of a frenzied god, this

capricious deity that frog marched you onto

the bus each morning, anointed with Haldol,

appointed in labeled state issue raiment,

his will be done until the final bray of the

bell.   

                                                                

Entomology

Tableau

A cheddar wheel of morning sun

grates up against the window screen

to curl in whorls into the room

where side by side we sleep in late

displayed on continental pins

Rorschach of papery wings mask

softly sifting light and rind, our

still silhouettes nestled in drifts.  

repost

He also saw the cook’s cat, which could do somersaults. 

At least that’s what the cook said,

a claim the cat, a shapeless sack

of snide, deigned neither to confirm

or deny, content to kill her

afternoons in desultory

elongation, stationed on

the window ledge above the blackened

ten burner Garland range.

Once, when the cook stepped outside

to smoke, the cat, her mood sour,

expansive, airily confided

that the corpulent cook could climb

the stairs on his hands while whistling

“Parlez-Moi d’Amour”, then spat

in the soup, dispelling any

lingering incredulity,

his stomach duly nailing

a flawless double backflip. 

Say cheese

Senior Trip, 1949

Tempting to leave it behind, the boxy

Brownie Target 16 sitting forlorn

on the scarred bureau in a Baily’s Crossroads

hotel room, relief map of green linoleum

cracking wise to the drowsy transom  

yawning in the morning heat, yearning

for a cross breeze, window open on

Truman’s second term, brick on the flop

house across the way close enough to touch,

diesel oozing up to the fourth floor

like icing in a layer cake tipped

onto its side, bus idling in the alley

waiting to ferry the class of ’49 across

the river, the way paved by cherry blossom.

Time enough, back over the Blue Ridge, through

Bristol, to quilt a throw of conviction, a colorful

serape for your father, posing draped and aged  

at the bus stop while you fumble the clunky

box from a Knoxville Woolworths, betrayed by

such a confusing array of apertures.