###### **DEEP SHINE**

The highway markers tick by like a clock or years at sea
as we squeeze more fun from the book of love,
then get a speeding ticket after being rear-ended.
Hopefully, the storm is mostly over,
so let me know when you’re coming through.
I’ve got paper plates and most of my molars,
yet I don’t remember anything about a wedding.
I was only trying to catch a little sun behind the Piggly Wiggly,
but instead was hungover the next day.
Serves me right, you said, for going down with a ship
called the Rum Boat.

Maybe that’s why there seems to be a cooling trend
occurring right here at home
where a sullen toad squats in my skull.
The next thing I knew you were texting me from the vet,
as my information is continually hoovered,
phone vibrating on the kitchen counter.
The shortcut to the toilet goes through my room
where a weathervane gets the bed spins
like Baby Yoda in his floating stroller.
What exactly is that guy’s point, anyway?
Take something. Do something to it. Do something to that.

There was also the time I stole the dog bowl,
which feels a bit like starting at the bottom,
but now the whole team’s here.
Or we could make an egg house with the ones
those chickens are always laying.
I’m sick of it is the only way I can say it and not spit it.
Somehow, I’ve almost filled up this page,
although the damage was done a long time ago,
loving too much or too little the way a cat does,
but who doesn’t enjoy getting rubbed beneath the collar?
Let’s imagine what we’re capable of.

&nbsp;

###### **SMOKE AND MIRRORS**

I found a friend at Wendy’s,
and sometimes we share a meal.
You can serve me with a spoon,
maybe a ladle on a good day,
but then I lost my way.
It wasn’t even noon,
and I might not have been awake
when the little man dances in a red suit.
One garbage can for a whole cruise ship.
One ring to rule them all.

It’s lovely to feel soft grass beneath
bare feet with toe tips gently tickled.
The wide river is alive
as well as what’s inside it.
It was a smooth takeoff
but a bumpy landing
in the gravel pit of our soul
where angels don’t fear to tread
and in fact don’t tread at all.
Every day I write the book.

It’s not the mother of all bombs
but the father of them.
Everything was for sale
until the virus arrived,
then everything was for the wiping.
I don’t know where the time went
or why the sun dropped out of the sky.
It must have been the special effects,
although that doesn’t make
these tears less real.

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