Focus

I'm trying to understand the joke
by studying it up close with a magnifying glass.
My friend gets it -
or is starting to -
and this other thing here with us -
THE BEAST -
well, he's positively gleeful.

I'm clueless,
none-the-wiser,
and the harder I look, the less I seem to understand.
The lens funnels the sun into a white-hot beam.
I have to keep twitching it - left,
right, up, down -
to keep from scorching the joke.

At our feet, the poor joke dances,
misunderstood,
around my blistering spotlight.
They love it.
Maybe that is the joke.