and sat at a senior vice president’s desk

(laughing all the way there)

and the mail drone wanted me to give it to her.

Like in the cartoons, my eyelids were quickly

yanked down and released to shoop! up

quickly revealing my pupils and irises,

rods and cones, replaced with the symbol of

Mammon, the old-timey dollar-sign with two

downstrokes.

A midnight run into the bank,

a souped-up piece of Scrap Metal

eluding the city’s finest. We pull off

our ski masks, several hundred thousand

dollars richer.

After the caper, we go our separate ways.

You, to the wilds of the eastern bloc and

the wiles of the darkly beautiful Yknowme;

I, petting a slumbering six-toed cat who

purrs happily asleep into the sunset or sunrise,

hoping to settle down with a big-hearted

big-chested blonde who digs Coltrane and

the Minutemen with equal rapture - who fits

the description of my Sugar Magnolia.

Sadly, it was not to be. As I wrote the first

line of the above poem, above-mentioned V.P.

kicked me out of her desk and back to the front

of the office, sans key

sans plans.