While finishing up my rum and coke I noticed 
                in the window down on the subway tracks 
a woman with a large Louis Vuitton handbag 

                walking between the rails talking on her phone 
staring up at the sky—When the game is over… 
                I had to jot down on my cocktail napkin— 

we must keep walking.  How ironic she 
                carried a Monogram Artsy MM Hobo Shoulder Bag, 
capaciously stylish as limeade on a winter’s day.

                That no one at the Red Lobster noticed 
but me made me sad and a poet.  
                So I rode my electric bicycle to my apartment, 

listened to the hedges by the funeral home 
                chatter and shit with titmice, nuthatches, 
one lovelorn bohemian waxwing longing to  

                stick its crested head into a pizza oven.  
The metal ventilator hood above 
                the crematorium gleamed 

like a pagoda in the gray.  My heart then 
               became a vast network of cul-de-sacs 
before the houses are built, a gated master-planned 

              community seen from a helicopter 
whose very special passenger today
              has just become a billionaire thinking 

how he will name my new streets 
             after his granddaughters, his favorite 
brands of single malt scotch, his dead hunting dogs.

             Every night I dream I’m waking naked and cold 
in a soiled duplex that has been sold from under me 
             and I must confront a large realtor in a red muumuu trying 

to open my front door.  Queen to King’s Rook 5 
            Checkmate.  If given the chance, I would 
break that child’s finger again.  


                        “Chess robot grabs and breaks finger of seven-year-old opponent”
                        Moscow incident occurred because child ‘violated’ safety rules by taking turn too quickly, says official.   
                                         --The Guardian, July 24, 2022