Now that it’s finally safe,
Now that Breaking Bad
Has wrapped for good,
And Albuquerque is
Safely free of Mr. White’s crystal ****,
That chemical perfection,
That awesome Blue Cook—
As it was known,
Known far & wide,
In the drug trade.
But I digress.

I return at last to New Mexico.
The so-called Land of Entrapment.
I slink back, decisively
To that island of Diversity,
Mutual Respect & Mañana.
I return to the scene of so many crimes.
Not to mention, misdemeanors.
“SMACK,” he’s back.
It’s that crazy **** himself:
The undeniably indomitable,
The late, great Soupy Sales.
Reminding us still,
Telling us, again, specifically,
Not to mention.

I am sitting in a brand new house
In Bernalillo, New Mexico,
Only 15 miles from downtown
ALBUQUERQUE.
Another Over 55,
Gated, golf-coursed
Lunatic asylums
(FOR ACTIVE ADULTS).
I am starting to repeat myself,
An early Alzheimer warning sign,
What do I expect to find here?
Life secluded,
Quiet days,
Getting quieter every day,
As strangers friends & neighbors
Pass on to what Hamlet called
“ . . . the dread of something after death,
The undiscovere'd country,
From whose bourn
No traveller returns . . .”
To a mind-set,
Decidedly focused on the children
I will soon leave behind:
“$15 thousand bucks
To stick his crusty ***
Into a dusty,
Musky box of knotty pine?
(Muskie? The Senator from Maine
Who broke down & cried.)
No way, Giuseppi.
Cremate the crazy SOB!
Cook him.
Nuke him,
Titanium implants & all.  Let
Infrared rays do their work,
Arc lighting a late February
Coronado golden New Mexico evening sky.”
Here I sit.
I am listening to
“Sentimental Sinatra.”
Vintage 40s stuff:
Bobbysoxers & WWII.
Once again, I strain for understanding.
Mom & Dad:
Perhaps their music, like ours,
Is a perceptual doorway?
Perhaps my children will someday
Take the time for careful scrutiny
Of why their father was the way he was.
My 65-year old, pensioned-off ***
Behind the gates,
Locked within the asylum.
Our parents;
Our children:
Be they ever inscrutable.