5091. I HAVE TWENTY EXTRA HANDS

I HAVE TWENTY EXTRA HANDS

I'm walking past the University Club on Fifth Ave.,

over by all those silly places : Rockefeller Center,

with the Oklahoma and Okinawa camera people 

everywhere snapping, and St. Patrick's Cathedral,

where the droll droolers from Cincinnati and Cologne

come to pay homage to their God, singing, as if

it makes any difference that you're now in a big,

fancy church like a nation-state on wheels.

-

Screw that, I'll just keep on walking  -  past the pretty

lady in the white fur hat, riding shotgun with her tiny

rich-girl dog peering out of the top of her handbag. Is it

still called a clutch? Too suggestive, I'd say today. Here,

as well, the cigar guy is smoking the stogie. It's large

enough to double as his cane, but it'll burn down and

he'll only lose support  -  and he never had mine anyway :

money, money, always funny. Like John F. Kennedy's

crooked dad, only causing trouble in the end.

-

Here sits Malaga. Really, that's her name. I don't know,

sounds more like a place to me. Would you name your

kid Calgary? Or Manitoba? Actually, not such a 

bad idea, not such a bad idea at all.