Détentes
There’s a tool they use to set things right.
But it won’t protect them from the bitter cold of a nighttime swim through the shark infested straits.
A tool of last resort — shaman life hacks! Tabernacle huckster butters!
And us!
We. Decked out with finger guns.
“Be a papper slapper with a doot doot doot doot do!”
Birdsongs for birdies in glam processsion of hip slapping.
“Hingum, Jingum — do do do.”
Milkweed in the shadows and other docile locations.
Détentes from a muddled past — prepaid insurgencies dropped out of Monroe’s pants into a bay of pigs —
“wheepa deepa poo pow pow!”
Whistling childhood advertising ear worms — jingling out of key — these jagged equations validate nothing but the phlegm in our souls.
“You can’t please yourself, but you might can please your soul.”
Grazin’ in the grass is where I wanna be scattering my dead father’s ashes — throwing a handful over my shoulder once, and filling fire ant monticules with the next.
Watching the magic 8 ball answer requests from another world.
“You’re a bitter man,” said Candide. “That’s because I’ve lived,” said Martin.
— Voltaire / Candide