Choices
-with a William Carlos Williams quote

sit alone indecision
park over there
no, the other table.

bring tropical observations
-plastic ash in tall grass-

bring inner pulpits on
tiered grey-white pinions of sea-birds

twist those
neutral ambitions into
sharp edged smoke rings

then retreat

we’ll gird your quaint didactic
scaffolds and morph

toward reflection with steel nerves.

***

I know a man
who, like indecision
smiled before exiting the table
and left his jacket behind

don’t laugh

this is the truth

he returned with two smiles
took the jacket from the back of the chair
looked poignant
and left a second time.

***

‘excuse me, do you mind if
we share your table?’
no, not at all.

a father and son
may be three or four

they share a large choc-chip
cookie, broken into pieces
‘i’ll have these bits, you have those’

‘look at the peafowl’ says the father
swivelling the son on his lap.

i’m reading William Carlos Williams
while on the grass
beyond the moat
past the peafowl
four teenagers throw
honky nuts at a dented
steel bin. i know
from before the dents
are from soccer balls
not honky nuts.

“with the passing of time, the outcome of my failure with you has been the complete damming up of all my creative capacities in a particularly disastrous manner such as I have never before experienced”

without warning
the father grabs
the son under the armpits
-clears chairs out of the way-
hoists him over another bin

‘he’s going to be sick.’

i look the boy deep in the eyes
he smirks, convulses, burps
those eyes start watering, burp

the father: ‘not as pleasant as poetry’

burp, sssppulll

but it is IT IS

at once the son is better;
the soles of his feet compress
the soles of his shoes
as the father lets him down

they leave slowly
without a word.