After telling us this was National Baked Bean Month
after hoping prior to arriving we hadn't
too heartily partaken

he offered up the seemingly effortless uplifting news
of Ivana Trump's 12,000 bras
then announced some of his poems were long

and he'd be reading a few so did we need
on this fluttering cottonwoods dappled
swaying hydrangeas day

on this clippers and schooners and pints out there
and stale suffocatingly unwindowed in here
to rearrange ourselves?

And as he reminded us of inchoate and benignity
and while he explained how the Pharaohs
traveling to the future needed

along with lapis lazuli working toilets
after the gut-wrenching news of Rembrandt
in his unmarked grave all his belongings

including a fine collection of art
sold to pay off debts he asked again
were we sure were we absolutely certain

we were comfortable not perusing the aisles
of Archie McPhee for the Jesus Action figure
for the Brain Gelatin Mold for the coveted

and astonishing Monster Woman housed
in her very own lunch box?

Martha Silano