Poets Must clean up After Unicorns
some of you
may find it queer.
is this time and year—
child of man
why can you only sneer?
as wonder tips over shopping carts,
in long hours after midnight
as the ordinary overflows
the habitual plots...
as merchandise with tabloid
offerings of supernal sights
cascades across the contemporary
urbane emptiness
of night shopping sprees...
as soups cans roll
like auspicious signs
the passages are freed
from the other side of mind
emerge fabled beings long denied...
it seems out of date
to see a unicorn
so i check the expiration date
on my company uniform...
a unicorn
comes through
the automatic crystal doors
haunts the isles of
food 4 cash
between the bandannas
and breakfast hash...
as if somehow
the checkerboard linoleum floors
was some distance
echo of Elysium fields
what saunter of mysterious joy
like bells your hoofs
on polished wax
perform and elfish rite...
i am just the stock boy
filling up
grocery bags
with marvelous items
of ubiquitous banality.
as the paper rolls flows
inking numerals
on fresh inked store receipts
my blue apron pockets
overflow
with cursive words
paying my bills
between the verses.
majestic unicorn
why do you come
for i as a wage slave must labor
each paycheck causes
lotus eater slumber
and i must
be diligent
to mix not
the eggs and butter
or the cleaning fluid and the marmalade,
in the same paper compartment
ruffling sameness..
i try to ignore you
as you nuzzle an apple
out of the produce barrel
but still the manger
gives me the eye
to enforce the
“no shop lifting rule”
even for the purer
figments of the imagination...
i chase you
you but just spring
past the anomalies
and reflections of rationality
as we speed
past the bigfoot
at the banana bin.
past the yeti
pawing the battered fish sticks
in the frozen foods
past that odd Chupacabra
that stares with a discerning gaze
at the glass cases
where the chicken breasts cool
as a sign proclaims
it is two for one.
dear unicorn
you are gone
perhaps to someone else
deserved dream
what a glorious mess
you have made
of my unknown
unassuming career plans
as i grab a mop
with pine and foam i turn figure eights
on the groceries floors
mop the glitter of your footprints off my heart.
for poets must clean up after unicorns
