But I am done with apple-picking now.
- Robert Frost, After Apple-Picking
You order a side of slaw from a waitress in a faded yellow uniform
and worry the humdrum of participating in a mass transit Q&A
as if the bottom were about to fall out . . .
Books are remaindered in times like these . . .
A Netflix devotee with a fat queue trots out an old something
you don't quite get . . .
You think leeks . . .
probably because Dr. Oz extolled their benefits yesterday
on several flat screen smart TVs . . .
Just how smart are they? . . . No idea . . .
When will they ever learn? . . . Dunno . . .
Raindrops keep fallin' on your head . . .
The morning meet-and-greet is a rain check . . .
The wet grass . . . and then? . . .
And then the concubine in you appears . . .
against the world of hoary grass
to announce that she too is done with apple-picking now . . .
Future prospects cast a baleful glance . . .
foreshadowed by ossification and entropy . . .
And so it goes . . .
the after-hours dramatization
the playing hooky in the aftermath . . .
Stymied . . . and overwhelmed . . . with delight, I might add . . .
sinking your teeth into a covered dish
as passersby scratch stubble . . .
and dream of becoming swingers of birches . . .
The standing room only room spins . . .
and fills with surrogate ventriloquist dummies
riding bicycles built for two . . .
By then you are three, four, five . . . maybe even six or seven . . .
