How to navigate
civilization

in four steps:
Find a chair and

sit quietly.
Then, dismantle

the chair and use
the pieces to

build a ladder, for
a panoramic view.

Return to solid
ground, and

remake the chair.
Sit quietly.

Having toiled in the
garden, the young
woman sits in the
shade of an ancient
tree and sings a song
—as if serenading the
tulips and tomatoes.

I am in

the present I was in

the past I

have seen the future and

we’re in it

I won’t bore you with the
whole story, I’ll go right
to the end, when it’s
the day of the wedding
between the gangster and
his bride, the lawyer, and
the priest at the church
is eating his lunch, a
strip-steak with creamed
spinach, as the bag-man
delivers the airline tickets
for their honeymoon in
Borneo, and the gangster
is tossing the gun
into the river, as his
bride is passed-out on

the floor of the church,
under the circular apse,
having been struck on
the head with a sacramental
chalice, and the priest, who
is really a spy, is dead,
apparently poisoned
by God knows who, and
the gangster is on his way
to Borneo, alone, as the
concussed lawyer-bride is
half-awake and can’t remember
where she is, how she
got there, or why she is
wearing a very ******
creamy-white wedding dress.

He is on the porch,
to escape his wife

and kids. He smokes
a guilty cigarette.

It is yet another
New Year’s Eve.

White paper folded in
the shape of a house,
next to an egg
in the sunlight,
casting a long shadow,
on a pastel green
plastic table top.

I am sitting on a branch,
near the tree’s top, next to

a Capuchin monkey and
we are watching a man

wrestling an alligator. In
the distance an industrial

truck belches black smoke
as it nearly runs into a

very old man slowly crossing
the intersection. Then the

monkey says, Looks like the
dude’s got the alligator in

a choke hold. And I say,
The old guy barely made

it across the street. Then
the alligator gets free and

scurries away, but gets run
over by the truck. ****, says

the monkey, then, I got a
job, working with a private

investigator. The monkey
peels a banana and hands

me a piece as I ask, Doing
what? The monkey looks me

in the eye and says, Help
solve crimes. I say, Sounds

like a TV show, and the
monkey replies, Yeah, very

much like a television show.
And we watch the old man

very slowly amble down the
street—until he is gone.