WHEN I PARKED in the driveway, a swarm of May Flies engulfed my car. I could see by the exertion of the ones on the windshield that they were trying to lift it. I was afraid to get out of the car. Maybe my added weight was the only thing keeping it on the ground. But, I was afraid to stay in the car too. If it turned out they could lift it anyway, I didn't know where I'd end up. So, I turned on the windshield washer and wipers and made a dive out the door to the pavement. The last time I saw my car, it was a Crown Vic shaped swarm of insects disappearing over rooftops to the east. I wonder if my insurance covers that?

.

TWO BEERS AND A NAP:

The first thing I remember,
as I woke up in my car,
is a night stick on my shoulder
outside that smoky bar.
The constable he told me:
“Son, you can’t sleep out here.”
I wish the sonnabitch’d told me that
before I swallowed my second beer.
Now I’m standing on the pavement
yawning in that man’s face.
He checks my blood ethanol limit
before I’m allowed to leave that place

So, set ‘em up bartender,
whatever you got on tap.
Tonight I’m on a bender.
I’ll need two beers and a nap.
Two brews down my gullet,
I’ll be feelin’ it tonight.
Dos cervezas to the limit,
I’ll be good to go alright.
Yeah, por favor bartender,
whatever there is on tap.
This old man’s on a bender.
I need two beers and a nap.

Lay me down ’til tomorrow
with a pillow on my ear.
Leave the TV tuned to Matlock
’til I sleep off this beer.
Some younger men will laugh off
my lack of fortitude.
Lost in a meditative state you’ll find me.
It don’t take too much to get me stewed.
Now, I’m passed out in the men’s room
of some sports bar at the mall.
My rowdy pals will party all night,
but I’ll never, ever see last call.

So, set ‘em up bartender,
whatever you got on tap.
Tonight I’m on a bender.
I’ll need two beers and a nap.
Two brews down my gullet,
I’ll be feelin’ it tonight.
Dos cervezas to the limit,
I’ll be good to go alright.
Yeah, por favor bartender,
whatever there is on tap.
This old man’s on a bender.
I need two beers and a nap.

My ex-wife used to tell me:
“Dad, you better just stay home.
Miller High Life’s in the ice box.
You got no call to roam.
You’ll wind up down at Pauline’s
face down in your own drool.”
I’d be a sonnabitch to fall for that.
I ain’t no domesticated fool.
So, I’d drive off in my Pinto.
I got me a short fuse.
I’d meet up with my good old time bro
for two big rounds of booze and a snooze.

So, set ‘em up bartender,
whatever you got on tap.
Tonight I’m on a bender.
I’ll need two beers and a nap.
Two brews down my gullet,
I’ll be feelin’ it tonight.
Dos cervezas to the limit,
I’ll be good to go alright.
Yeah, por favor bartender,
whatever there is on tap.
This old man’s on a bender.
I need two beers and a nap.

.

SHE HOLDS the beer bottle up to the light, as if checking the clarity for a drowned mouse. She waits for him to say something. He thinks: “I’m not saying anything, because whatever I say will be wrong.” Now, she’s giving him the drowned mouse eye. Did he just think that to himself? It’s possible he said it out loud, which would indeed be “wrong.” He’s not sure which is was. And now, he waits for her to say something.

.

La Canción de los Hipopótamos

Pepe was no foreigner.
He was born in Columbia
to slave parents purchased from
merchants in the United States
for the amusement of
Pablo Escobar and his guests
at Hacienda Napoles,
a pompous pleasure palace
in the Columbian countryside.
All that blow going up disco noses,
creating fleeting moments
of chemical paradise.
All that cash coming back
to Pablo Escobar.
It had to end ugly and it did.
How else would it go down?
Everybody took what they could
and disappeared.
And then, Pepe was free.
Pepe disappeared too.
He took a bride into the jungle.
They ran for freedom.
They lived like their African ancestors.
They had a kid, born in freedom.
It was paradise, without the chemicals.
Pepe was no foreigner,
but he was a stranger.
A couple of car salesmen from town
came on safari with a small army
to watch their back.
That’s how Pepe died.
Car salesmen gunned him down
in the Columbian jungle.
But, there are still hippos out there
in the wild.
Pablo Escobar’s hippos are free.

.