with a little girl’s lunch box
full of closet soft-core porn
the not quite has-been fat man
and his uninspired horn
clutching at the robes
of the prophets as they passed
laying claim to their visions
to embroider his polyester past
any fire in his belly
has failed to burn him thin
as the misremembered stories
he’s always starring in
and the wife at home she wonders
when he’ll give up and chase the boys
but he can’t hear the train is leaving
through all his self-assuring noise
R. L. Allison
3/22/02
thanks to Tom for the title
