WILD CHERRY

This ain’t no regular Pepsi, friend
It’s Wild Cherry
And a dour woman practices
Her violin nearby
I inhabit the tree’s shade

Because my face is in recovery
From beers on the boardwalk
At Coney Island
Sun like a whip
We saw the pendulous

Nest of some greeny
Parrots there
Choking the electric transom
And invaded by sparrows

Foreign women walk by with
Shopping bags
Or run by in sports bras
Birds dip and shiver

In a pile of fine dust
Amid the cobblestone
A taxi screeches

Men with cigars seem ubiquitous
Coloring the air
One way to live is to write

The gist of what’s happening
So to know it

Today I loathe
Meaning and think only

In quale and burst

The dogs don’t smile
But they appear to

My very own sister approaches
Talking on the phone

With our parents
Who are in New Mexico
Overfeeding hummingbirds

The same thing
(Sugar water)
Acidly coursing my stomach

The woman with the violin now
Taking furious notes
With her free, claw-like hand
My sister’s talk

Slow and melodious
Because that’s what’s
Happening
My pen running

Out of ink
Dusk approaching sly
An elderly woman
In an orange wig
Warbling some senile aria

Oh no she spies
Me writing about her
The obvious, lazy disdain
Sing if you can sing she says
And I’m cowed again