Fear in a Coffee Mug

With gulping eyes
rat-tat-tat heart
pinprick belly
and celebration groin

he tottered on twiglegs
into the jagged geometry
of a megabusiness metropolis

where the authority of money
flashed through gnashing
smiles and whirlpool eyes

whose weather warned
of crashes, losses, storms.

There was fear in a coffee mug.
Whispers in a drawer.
A pinball jing! jing! gleam
that screamed everything was GREAT!

that made him want to rave naked
through the canyons under the skyscrapers
until he crashed into something ultimate.



But he chooses instead to stand still
and stare at the sky
each evening as a prayer.

Something there in the upper air
makes worry seem silly,
and stones like breath,

and the strivings of his fretful fellow workers
worthy at least of a smile
that strains to embrace all of this

in the circumference of his loneliness.
Let tears fall to quench us.



.