The Phone is Ringing

for Joanne

Everyone deserves to be a bodhisattava
if only for one day

(a soliloquy for at least 7 voices)

perhaps she meant you need to
learn to become a great ventriloquist
like Saint Augustine?

meanwhile missing the evening of slack key guitar at Pt. Reyes
due to television or immigrant authority or
elbows at the Food Bank

I suppose we should opt for a bag of rice
& some seaweed?

You might feel bad but you won’t starve

The “burden of opportunity” has a certain charm but
I’m not sure that it’s the truth

These things must be sorted out

so many sand pebbles to choose from
agate, quartz, jade, glass, wood, iron, bone,
styrofoam—

I’ll take the one shaped exactly like my life

Let me know when you’ve found it