What is it? What do you all want from me right now?
Should I unfurl myself into a crimson bloom
in the springtime in this age of climactic doom,
my ripened rosebud clashing with time’s pallid brow?

Or maybe I should spend money to fix the prow
of the canoe I won shooting dice in backrooms;
four-five-sixes sprouting in the dark like mushrooms,
I flex and vanish before they can milk the cow.

Seafoam sits thick like dairy in my phlegmy lung;
I am oarless, not earless, I hear the riptides
rush around my eardrums like some saga unsung.

Though I couldn’t really swim, my spirit abides
in the pollen that collects on the inlet’s tongue
e’er allergic to the breeze (as well as dust mites).