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Dropping a Hint

I begin whistling a tune out-of-tune.
My iPad spins out of control.
The name Hippolyte is stuck in traffic.

A docudrama appears on cable.
It has all the answers.
The costumes grab viewers.

There is enough to go around
but a few mistakes insist on more
and need to be read the riot act.

Even the incidentals prove incendiary:
frequent flyers fall victim
to road rage more frequently than control groups.

A fact checker is dispatched
on a Radio Flyer.
Suddenly, my grandfather taps on the window

a Philip Morris hanging from his lip.
He scribbles something
onto a greasy spoon's paper napkin.

A chess match at an adjacent table
catches my eye
and takes away my breath.

A stalemate hovers.
A butterfly man begins
dismembering a white picket fence.

He is obviously troubled.
I can see it in his wings.
The authorities arrive lickety-split.

A hand-held camera cuts
to a toddler's gappy smile then zooms in
before dissolving into the void.