various tributaries

(or the time a young woman on 195 west bumped her third suicidal opossum)

so sponsor me. curate me. but hang me away from direct sunlight.

O, how it burns me up, makes me pale, weakens the luminosity!

gimme a lil’ bit of that mouth-to-mouth so’s your hot

exhaling breath articulates my lungs, and then

warm my hands in the cold morning's room within the fold.

put them in deep, but not so deep so's I can’t manipulate my thumbs.

then go.–– but wait!

watch out for the old buzzard across the street who clears his lungs

of a day’s worth of phlegm late into night like to rattle my walls.

well, well.–– what do we have here?

see that ol' merry-go-round yonder? let’s take her for a spin, then 

announce to the neighborhood we've arrived at our destination. –– whoa!

don’t resuscitate that bumped opossum! resuscitate me, why don't cha?

unabashedly piggybacking Jack Kerouac's: "Scattered poems" /

page 17, 4th verse, last stanza, right side of the spine.