"talk about me if you please
but I must be Hercules..."

(Allen Toussaint)

September 'tox
and the "sub-conscious"
back with pearly teeth,
party dreams as
subtle as Marnie
without the saving grace
of a young Bruce Dern,
otherwise a pipeload
of nasty eighties
bowl-scrapings
filtered through a screen
of Screen, the fear
is not of crystal meth
but access
to wakefulness
via household products
otherwise divvied
up among fighter crews,
prison guards, janitors
and the federales
of Sumas
patrolling beet fields
for sugar thieves.