And the steam outside looked like an escalator.
It caught my eye while I was sitting here
thinking about writing this poem.
I found a pick (a guitar pick),
a four of spades, and a Swedish Fish
under the chair coushions.
I can’t remember how to spell cooshians.
I was looking for money because
I thought that mabe some rich guy
dropped a hundred and all I needed to
do was check.
I couldn’t leave it unchecked.
I think that this pick must be some kind of omen
because only a few minutes before I found it
I was wishing I had brought my guitar on tour with me.
This will be the pick I play with
when I get home tomorrow.
It has character; it will make me play better.
I actually on some deep-down superstitious level
believe this pick will make a difference.
Poor soul who lost that four-of-spades.
I wonder how long it takes for someone who
lost a card to realize it’s gone, on average.
Depends on the game I guess.
But I was thinking about how I
wanted to write how I feel like I
am on the verge of being a really good dancer.
I wonder if this is a reaction to the newspapers.

Then I start to think that this is just another
one of those stream of consciousness poems.
The ones where people who think they have ADD
write down whatever comes to their head
because they think that they are geniuses and everybody
wants to know what goes on in a genius’ head.
And it pretty much is one of those poems
and I’m a little embarrassed, except for the order.
Order like a letter in a word in a sentence
in a paragraph in an article.
Order like a pile of old newspapers that goes back in time.
Two weeks, maybe longer. A month, with Sunday
usually out of order and picked through.
Pages, sections missing, used for new puppies
or gift wrap or set aside to be a reminder
of a writer you forgot you want to buy.

And now I can’t see the steam anymore
that looked like an escalator
because it never really was an escalator:
it was steam.
But this lost Swedish Fish is real.
But I won’t archive it, I won’t keep it.
I’ll leave it under the
cooshians, cushions, cushans,
pass it on.
Besides, real things don’t have much of a shelf life.