A bargain, my life today.

No quarter for the monkey, his tin cup’s spilt,

the grinder spanked and loosed

screeching to the trees.

Just the sun I needed

but blinding too late

to keep meaning from the memory of my eyes.

A key for every knocked down door.

Every ivory slapped and tickled.

The bruising and the pallor comes upon the Sunday face

and the jowls of Saturday night.

They wobble when they walk

not knowing

they are the dead

and tremble at the cawing of the crows.

But not me.

I walk steady laughing across this tilting land

calling out:

“Here come rest upon my arm.

Life is but a lingering death

and leaving it no harm.”

Little plastic duck

tethered lonely to the pond

pity the sky brings none to play

today just rain

just me

sheltered by the tree