Waiting Cheese Platter Under Wraps
I am sitting alone
in Conference Room D.
Beside the rattling tin of instant coffee
and waiting cheese platter
under wraps.
The wire microphones
in front of each swivel chair
like twisted forgotten
balloon animals.
Corporate art walls
and freshly vacuumed floors.
Then my wife comes in.
What are you doing?
I thought you were waiting for me
outside the bathrooms.
What if someone comes in right now?
I tell her to sit down.
That anyone who walks in
will assume I am in charge
and that I will run the
conference.
You don’t even know what the conference
is about!
But I know what it should be about.
Let’s get out of here,
she says.
I reluctantly give up my seat
at the head of the table.
Leaving Conference Room D
to fend for itself.
On the placard outside
it reads: Millwrights Union
Local 1916.
You don’t even know what a millwright is!
she scoffs.
Sure I do,
I say.
It’s a group of people that mill about
with the right posture.
That would have been one hell of an interesting conference,
she laughs.
I tell her we can always go back.
She can sit in and keep the minutes.
The chairs turn around just like in The Exorcist.
She drags me by the arm
while I snatch her purse
and let her know that I’m beginning
my life of crime.
A Complete Stranger
You got the stuff?
he asked.
And since I didn’t have the stuff
he turned away quickly
and walked off.
Looking back once
with a confused look
before he rounded the corner
and was gone.
Prong
The plug is fishing for attention
over by the outlet along the far wall.
It is harpooning whaling vessels
back into bloody waters.
Double-pronged and prom night
obvious with its intentions.
Four days until another
failed apocalypse comes to pass.
These doomsdayers keep
getting second chances.
I stopped believing what people
said somewhere around 1989.
That was a big year for me.
Hair on my balls
and my first time on an airplane.
I have given the plug what it wants.
Some undeserved attention.
Not a place in the wall with the spiders,
but the next best thing.
Shoosh
Lay off the big scream,
don’t let them hear you.
Make them lean into something else
like knocking over a stack of
old newspapers.
Tiptoe around the cauldron
Mr. Stir-stick.
Cover your mouth
cover your bets.
Your word is not enough.
They want all the words you
can think of.
A Princess Lion with Leopard Spots
Kitten has gone for her haircut.
To remove all the mats.
She is the manor work cat.
My wife calls to tell me that kitten
felt self-conscious at first,
but that everyone kept picking her up
and telling her how beautiful she looks
and that now she is strutting around everyone.
Little Miss Thang!
my wife says.
I thought she had stripes like a tiger,
but now that she’s shaved down
you can see she has spots more like
a leopard.
A princess lion with leopard spots,
I say.
Yes!
she yells excitedly.
Did I tell you that she tried
to leave work with me
the other night?
I tell her she did not.
Good thing I looked down.
Little Miss Thang was walking out
the door proud as she pleased with the hook tail
cats get when they’re happy.
She says she’s been told by her boss
that she can’t bring the work cat home.
She told Kitten she had to stay,
but that my wife would be back soon.
So she was running a hustle on you,
I say.
Trying to make you think she always
came home with you.
Oh yes, she acted like it was natural
and I was weird for questioning it.
It was so cute!
I tell her that if she had her way
we’d have all the cats in the world.
My wife laughs
and says she still wants that shirt
that says all the cats love
her best.
Even this cat,
I joke.
Ahhhh,
she says.
But don’t tell Kitten,
I say.
Those felines get
really jealous.
She promises not to tell
and we hang up.
Then I watch a documentary
on turn of the century madhouses
in England.
Ganglia Wires
If I could
see into the future
I would cut my eyes out
and give them
to you.
Snip the ganglia wires
and everything.
Now
they are your
problem.
Pass them along
the family line if you want.
I promise
I didn’t put a curse
on them.
That is just
bad luck.
2 Degree Sky Differential
I come downstairs
and she shows me what she
has been working on
all afternoon.
See what I did there?
she asks.
You made the colour picture
black and white,
I say.
Not that,
she says.
I fixed the sky.
You fixed the sky?
The sky was crooked,
she says
going back and forth
between the two pictures.
See?
Not really,
I say.
She turns the computer screen
back towards herself.
How can you not see that?
You’re the artistic one,
I say,
did you really think I would
march downstairs
and say I see you fixed the sky,
there was a 2 degree sky differential,
but you fixed it.
I like what you did there,
does that sound
like me?
She take a large swig of her wine.
It is a white Chardonnay.
I saw what you did there,
I say.
Does that count?
Frogs
The back door is open.
You can hear the frogs singing.
Before the real heat arrives
so there is no fan.
And we are drinking rum.
Something from a bottle made to look
as though some second rate pirate stole it
and buried it in our fridge for
safekeeping.
I come back from the bathroom
and it is Summertime.
Not the real summer in full,
but Sydney Bechet
on clarinet.
The wife was always good with the reeds.
Has a natural aptitude for music.
The frogs still singing in the dark.
A napkin over my mouth
to wipe away the
evidence.
