shi(r)ts in sherbe(r)t shades

Shi(r)ts in Sherbe(r)t Shades

I might be heading a bit farther north. How do I look

to the color of the copper teakettle on the stove and dressed in

the deserted road instead of the basement alcove?

Suddenly self-conscious about his clothes, wondering if

it was what the captain had told them to do,

he found that the first drink, in combination with the

setting sun on the Androscoggin, turning it into a red

thought of cutting into hearts, into brains, made his hands

never happy; he only looked happy. But he had friends, and

everything is gone, and what's the sense of living, what's it all

huddled up against the brown building with the vending

studying the beige siding, the bay window with his mother's

love for a man as an ephemeral passion. They marveled,

fanned out around him like the remains of a pissed-over fire.

Water might slow the strokes of the awful scissors

with dignity until they were out of the parking lot and

until this transformation is made.