Those Two

You know those two – that wispy duo

of whom we will sometimes catch a fleeting

view, floating through, looking back as if

they hadn’t caused what they are looking

back at. They make their unseen minions

pour great bowls of vitriol into the batter

of the many-layered cake they daily bake

striated with the everyday catastrophes we

snack on. Soon gain is loss, abundance drains

to lack. They joke and drop our smart-phones,

keys and wallets with a plop into those vortices

that lead into the wormhole to the only galaxy

where smart-phones, keys and wallets

aren’t welcome. They are the bell rung

at the funerals of suicides, the three alarms

that blare out from the firehouse too late

to get the hoses to the fire, the siren

in the ambulance rampaging to the wrong

address, the cruel and stupid fury of a biased

jury at the trial whose detestable denial breeds

a verdict no half-sentient being doesn’t hate.

They fund a major portion of our fate. They waft

and flutter: butter vapid folderol upon the biscuit

of a breeze, flirty rapid little tease, disingenuously

promising to please: looking for more spines

to bend and lives to end and minds to numb

and knees to seize and hearts and hips

to break. Kicker is, we like that cake.

.