ENIGMA

It begins as it always begins when the mind has blown itself astray,
below the bruised ashtray of New York, New York headlines where–
at the top of a Bushwick Fire Escape as a matter of fact– a pigeon
pecks at his post, at a drill-sergeant’s pace, trying to launch into the
inside-out vacuum hum of outer space as this pigeon like Ziggy Star-
dust vacuums up our superintendent’s own dropped line of bleach
cut with what tastes for battery-acid glazed in a vile coat of (yeah)
cocaine. Meanwhile, I simply will remind my co-conspirators that–
like Vladimir or Estragon–my mind has blown itself astray for a life
that fits rather candidly like a Jack-in-the-Box stuffed in (yeah) my
father’s brown suitcase. My father’s brown suitcase, which for now
remains bandaged to a dead Ash plant. By a few fake, a few fake

plastic strands of (yeah) duct tape.