Instructions When Going Aboard
The instructions are scribbled
on a white plastic bed sheet:
Always ask for ketchup.
Pack a spare Go Greyhound T-shirt.
Say you once worked for the CIA.
Pretend you are currently a preacher.
Never sleep on a glass mattress.
Avoid people known to explode.
Hide the reserve batch of love potion.
Snub your nose at any Anglo aristocrat.
Never raid a beehive without gloves on.
Use the cherry red tent as backup only.
Execute all roving eyes but pardon ears.
Finger every face to be sure.
And remember, if a foreign voice billows in pleasure off the
dark of hotel walls, rest assured good things do occasionally
happen & that only a real thigh could be warm smoothie thick
like that.
Monocultural Kiosk
Nobody in the entire town speaks Russian but
they'll point out the emergency fire exits for
a one-drink minimum as long as its ladies night
&
if not than that's a fabulous miniature train
set in the basement or the attic who lounges
around in pajamas all day with a girl on both
arms must mean more than the cheap thrill of
being misquoted or a continuation of bridge
art all the way across the mouth of the Amazon
built brick by brick to the delight of tourists
learning from Los Alamos or even viewed from
high above while flying over the handlebar.
Pattymelt.Dingleberry.Woonsocket.
Better than words & you can get your hands dirty.
Then later, we drive to the boarded-up Dairy
Queen and park in back. A chestnut with its broad
green leaves. Ivy running up one side of a brick
wall. White oleander dividing two vacant lots.
There's a harsh gray sky between the rains. Maybe
Syracuse looms over the meadows. "Ever notice how
you never hear birdsong at night when its really
cold", she remarks to no one in particular after
blowing the bayonet. A bank of floodlights high
overhead. Or there could be a cinder in the right
fielder's eye. "Yeah, and this is the kind of
weather where history just sits waiting", I reply,
recalling the role a cannon plays in a long siege.
Or there could be hills in the distance with queer
angles and a narrow ditch that smells faintly of
fish. What's left us or tin soul inside. And so for
the next few minutes, we talk about the different
ways we could chew our yucca, while the car radio
produces an exact copy of events in papier-mache.
[END]
© 2006 Maurice Oliver - Contributor's
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