Member Poem

Arrive on time with your luggage packed and labeled. Wear loose clothing.

Arrive on time at the station for your destination with no questions asked
and your ticket in hand.

Arrive on time in the choke of the morning when objects leap
from your grasp and your head is aching.

Arrive on time when your toast turns to shale and the amputee at the corner
has run out of clever rhymes no matter how many quarters you feed him.

Arrive on time in your continental best, prepared to dine alfresco,
ready to drink in hotel bars and be taken in hotel suites.

Arrive on time for courtroom dramas that play with swift and
awkward gaps between. No sotto voce here. Many silent abortions.

Arrive on time as if you were a drone chosen by your apiary peers
to service the rapacious Queen.

Arrive on time with your rage suppressed and a telegenic
grin pasted across your scowl.

Arrive on time for liquid blue excursions in the scuba deep.
Favor the shoreline. Predators swim beyond the tide.

Arrive on time for midair collisions that leave burning
human debris slathered across the land.

Arrive on time for long injections of the brew
that stirs no passion in your veins.

Arrive on time in a cascade of sunsets that promise
a somnambulistic week of moist viral intoxication.

Arrive on time as if you were a fish who craves the hook
and being served with tartar and lemon on a linen table.

Arrive on time in your grandfather's pocket. Not really your grandfather
but an influential patron of all that could be. If you can trust him.

Arrive on time like a lover who knows no option beyond
the gazebo's programmed kiss.

Arrive on time with your portfolio intact. Include the confidential
papers you don't want anyone to see.

Arrive on time for your graveyard eulogy
and the worms' artless consummation.

Appeared in Sybil's Garage #4, 2007