Porous the punchline
spoken through wads
of lettuce at lunchtime
by the septuagenarian
vegetarian who has never
flashed a peace sign,
nor could distinguish it
from a Vulcan salute.
He’s not the font
of the jokes he paces
in front of the mirror—
even the one liners
are anonymous, traffic
conversation like air
or money. Not to him.
No sooner he hears one
he likes, he owns it.
Spins the extended bits
out with panache,
skips an extra extra
extra beat from the end,
bringing out in the eyes
and bellies of his morning
shuffleboard or pill-
buddies, laughter in rising
cascades that mistaking
each pause as ultimate
begins to agitate the rows
of green jello in the thunder
of many dentures exploding
into pure guffawing.
Copyright @ 2014 by Ravi Shankar. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-a-Day on June 9, 2014.