THE LAST LAUGH

An old man with a dignified mustache
as a doorman at an elegant hotel
and yet he has become too old to lift
those heavy suitcases so what happens?

He is demoted to washroom attendant dispensing
pristine hand towels to snooty hotel patrons

This is what I hate about the 1920’s!

All the jobs were depressing, black and white jobs
from all I have seen even if on such a day if a bluebird were

To alight on the old man’s epaulette and were to whisper
“I love you” in his ear it would not matter for the bluebird

Would be black not blue and the words “I love you”
so white so chaste so perfect and so needed right now
would ascend heavenly in a white word balloon that would
mingle and disappear into the opaquely white sky outside

Yes, outside Now the old depressed doorman is outside
trying, naturally, to find a cold 1920 river to jump in and drown

In, a lake where the goldfish are,
naturally, not gold, at all–
they’re grey