Poem-a-Day

We are not supposed to be here
Trent whispers on the stairs.
The Hendricks Martini, the rye Old Fashioned
are other people’s drinks; the burgundy
air under the Japanese maples—

Like dogs for hours they trained us with trays:
A real bell chiming once means book-it
to the hall of on-loan Grecian statues, where donors gather
to admire the moony, hand-made asses,
some of them chipped, others immaculate broken-
off dicks.
That is door one.

Door two leads outside. To a tidal pond,
where the water shines brightest where it’s darkest,
as in a Dutch painting.
There is honesty in darkness

impossible in light.
There’s a rococo footbridge hard at work
holding up some dumb illusion,
and we clock out
and cross under its lamps

that stretch us like taffy
to twice our size and it hurts
to change—

All we need’s the right mix of shit.
I’ll take a beer and more K
while the cats are away, I hear Trent say.
Whatever happened to him?

We all meet at the water later
and he tells us ‘the tide brings back bodies sometimes’
and he hands me the moon
in the grooved tip of a key saying quick!
quick! The British are coming!