A Poem by Bill Jansen

Chinese Take-Away Sky

Muttering something from Shakespeare,
perhaps "Woe, alas, time calls upon us!"
the nuthatch pokes sunflower seeds
into a cranny of the psychiatrist's palm.

The shrink asks him again how many followers
he has on Twitter...

--Over a million, he replies,
including the Boston symphony Orchestra.

--and how does that make you..

--feel?

_ I don't feel, Doc, I fly..

The psychiatrist makes a cage with her fingers,
and starts over:

--in our last session you were checking the pulse
of a Hawthorne
in the 12 thousand block of Martinazzi Avenue..

--that's right.

--tell me again exactly what happened or did not happen.

-- well, Doc, there were these two hearts
carved into the bark, old hearts,
stuffed with micro jitter and boneless parades,
twerking mites smarter than Pascal,
but unintentionally funny like Sid Caesar..

--and how does that make you..

But the nuthatch had hidden himself
in a Bonsai tree
on the left edge of her enormous desk.

When his hour is up
the psychiatrist takes a carton of Chinese takeaway sky
out of her backpack
and stares at the sun inside.

 

Bill Jansen lives in Forest Grove, Oregon.  His stuff  has appeared recently in Gap-toothed Madness and Asinine Poetry.