Choice at the Blossom Café
Mark Taksa

His cane slips on a rusty coin
in the dog-dug grass and the coin admits
the address of the Fountain of Youth. The optimist
rises above the weight of what he owes
and finds the most moist part of the park.

He reaches into the pond,
sees himself holding the coin
like a friend in the days when townspeople
threw shit out the window and barmaids
were quick because life was brief.

A bug floats under his eye
and he discovers he is an aristocrat
who daubs a cosmetic spot on the scab
of his passion. He is drunk all the time
because life is brief. And he risks
at cards because he aggregates
that life is no more than it is.

This is news, he thinks that life
is fenced by what it is! He remembers a newscaster.
Because the evening news gives him believing,
he rises. There is no rust in his knee joints,
legs coiling like gears of a new engine.

ISBN 1-882983-61-0
24 pages/$9