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Happy Hour in Purgatory

1.
The city I left bobs, a neon cherry afloat
in a galaxy of gin. The swizzle
of the subways and the lime
of the homeless, the moon
shine seen in the bottom of a well
drink, drunk in one gulp.

2.
The city of bob, palindromic
and dyslexic in its obsessive back
and forth. Preening yet benighted
as if trapped in an arcade shooting
range, a target of revolving ducks
unaware that the Lord
of the Flies is on his way
with a pocket full of change.

3.
It is always happy hour in purgatory
where the city I left is bobbing
in the celestial barkeep’s tumbler,
the pike of a toothpick piercing its flank
as if it was Saint Maraschino
about to be crucified.


                                                                        Published in Pacific Review
 

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