Pretend you have instant karma instead
of instant coffee. There’s a war outside between squirrels
where acorn bombs drop from the wings of dragonflies.
Everyone is cranky. Everyone wants to drop a bomb on Geraldo
Rivera, but no one wants to waste a bomb.

Call me wounded or Wile E. Coyote, but I’m an uncrossed
road, a stick of dynamite ready to blow in the hands that hold me.
Another roadside distraction. Another ticket to
Zimbabwe where coyotes run through the alleys and
yesterday’s news reports that the roadrunner was last

seen trying to elude Operation Roundup. Elections came
early this year. I wanted to vote for Foghorn Leghorn. I wanted
natural plastics and healthy cigarettes. I can’t waste time with
instant karma and dragonflies or spill my martini across an
ocean of squirrels. I want to unlock my suaveness,
relax with the ghost of Evel Knievel and find

George Clooney’s trap door. It’s a bit of a mystery how
energy begets energy, how we keep explosions
neatly gathered in a metal casing. Someone switched an
emerald with a green Mardi Gras bead and the brunette
raised her shirt, raised enough money to buy
a ticket to Zimbabwe. Let’s face it, we hoped the
lost vault would hold riches and not a lot of dust, but

that’s Hollywood, a TV special, an unfinished election complete with
hanging chads, no purple states, a news reporter in a cleavage-filled dress.
Antarctica melts and we photograph the beautiful, a Melrose
nightclub where trendy men dance with white man’s overbite,

shuffle their feet. It’s painful to watch
how the world is holding the stick of dynamite and
we’re the ones lighting the fuse, unaware if we’ve
enough time for coffee or to talk peacefully with the squirrels.