Birdwatchers

we share cigarettes, beer cans
a pay phone in the lobby, a
backpack filled with nonsense
we shake filter Newports from a pack

pencil in erasable runes, notice
migrating ducks on the Fox River
in winter, at night, beneath
newly minted constellations

[RK, 1/4/2021]


Ad Lib

I am tired of being an extra
unbilled, untethered, and
I don’t mean the umbilical cord
that has been laid claim to
long ago
with youthful star power

yet I give
a perfect perforated performance
look for the understudy
in the wings, see nothing but
myself miming in a mirror

[RK, 1/4/2021]


Insomnia Diary (Marginalia)

I fall asleep in full sunlight
drink a garlic concoction
cover the bedroom mirror
stake out a claim and
use a sword as a cross
 
at midnight I trip over
Barnabas Collin’s cape
became entangled in Elvira’s hair
fast forward through Bela Lugosi film clips
cough on Morticia’s cigarette smoke

because what I thought
I wanted, what I wanted
I did not, do not
want
[RK, 1/4/2021]