MICROTEL NY INDIANA

Microtel NY Indiana
stoned in the car again
america’s middle
was long ago;
this age of what

Let me be severe
as weather can be
and sing while doing
the parking lots of South Bend
in search of Band-Aids

Their flotsam follows them
to the pool
sneakers, socks, shorts
and shirt in a trail that ends
in bare feet

And the shaking manner
time has going forward
prostrate, upright, and on 3
legs, red puddles
spreading in the rain

The only germs left standing
in the disinfected laundry
are virulent staph
and necrotic strep
I’ve got to get

my recondite ass
out of this room but the pool
is crowded and loud
with eye-burning
Jovian fluid

The guy who brought the cot up
walked into the parking lot
and I panicked, until I saw
him light a cigarette
and pull his cell phone out

Is it citrus it all smells like?
The carpet gassing off
moldy filters blowing in
tubes of soap and shampoo
opened, oozing

EPITAPH

Broiled fish
and baked potatoes:
every year
for twenty years
he ate them