Laughing Drops

Toppling through the radio
active in the greens,
my reason to smile fidgets
to keep itself alive
at the upper lip.

The world angles itself into view,
ways and years heavier than my head.
Wrinkles pluck seconds and minutes
into my forehead
and let them droop down
into a canopy over my vision.
A vision from somewhere
in 1994—out of a straightjacket
I wore to weddings
and didn’t take off at funerals.
Blues play in the background
painting away the colour
of rhythms that disguised
rainbows into pieces minuscule
enough to evaporate from memory.

Despite the chocolate
I am cradling in
before and after tea at breakfast
and during the afternoon heat,
Happiness refuses to take my hand
in his and hear
the sound of silence
from my lips.

Laughing Drops

There it lies at the bottom of the jar,
Wrapped in the gnashing of teeth,
Smoking glossy brown pretentious pot—
All because those wrinkles from long ago
seem to have sat in bookshops with me
and dozed off
in a very literate
complacency
on my aching shoulder
as I headed to (Page) 43…