7809. CARTAGENA

CARTEGANA

(ash wednesday, 2016)

Queen of the Carribbean coast, they

write, like a caribou in a Maine asylum

waiting for extradition. Something better

this way comes. Or has to. So don't wait

for me to be the juggler now spinning plates.

My warehouse eyes my Arabian drums.

-

The sock-hop days and the Lindy hop are

gone; all they have on TV now are the crazies.

Looney Tunes, playing volleyball. Like naked

astronauts just dying to float weightless in space.

-

Somewhere I have to think it's Carneval once more.

Wicked priests dispensing ashes on the run. Woman

draping beads over their pendulous breasts. My

warehouse eyes my Arabian drums : the

juggler, spinning new plates, naked, 

and weightless, in space.