Dance Like a Robot

You pretend you’re available but then
you are so precise
& as perfectly timed as a spilled drink

or those letters you write so
carefully that no one can read them

& the long arm of suicide reaches in
at 3 in the morning laying down impossible odds
but I just don’t know...

put a dollar sign on something when I die

fading into the night of another day
a stomp-down Book of Dreams starring
              Jimmy Reed, Tsongkapa, William Carlos Williams
& the Lighthouse All-Stars

Paradise goes thud
topped with garnished wages
& black silk bourbon
taking a bite out of the porcelain

like an African blonde wading thru the seaweed

& the wind kicks up off the water
slurring like a wrecked gull