6:12

The mammoth again, at Murphy's West 34th and
it's not even Friday, lurching in out
of cigarettes and
sweating ordering of course a whisky
sour against sympathetic
barkeep dialogue "Everything alright
sir?" and the Scrabble-tile "Mhm-s'ok."

Subtext:
"Let this be as a tsunami to
my square-jawed hamlets of
quiet terror"

And we know, we know, shh, we know, we've stroked trembling
fur before
Retouched makeup in hand-mirrors
before
We know the
jagged syntax of workspeak; we
work too
Chatter it out, mammoth, "Financial
miscalculations," — who doesn't make
mistakes, sip your
water — "extreme mitigating circumstances," of course
they were

Sometimes we all
wish, mammoth, that
we could take a jetliner to the Ozarks
Hired sherpas murmuring "head between knees,
attaboy, deep breath," but

the world swoons, mammoth, and you
must lean against it