The Vig Has Come Due........

and with it the ringing of the
telephone, echoing within this cave
of plaster and paint, the moldings
straightedged to the corners

ringringringringringring
ringringringringringringring......stop and silence

hangs heavy in the room, burgeoning down upon
these stooped shoulders, it drips, like treacle,
to the floorboards, a mess, a mess again--
clean it up with rotten rags and white vinegar

in the land of cornflakes the queen of the
weiner (red hots, get your red hots, red hots here....
see them pan-sizzled, black with bacon drippings)
tap dances across the kitchen floor,
each tap a morse code, no more, no more, no more

she cannot frame the words ego te absolvo,
pax tecum, go and sin no more: the
damage is done---it growls from her
stomach like a bear chained and baited,
the wee ones in short pants pummelling the
floor, fast as heartbeats, soles worn tissue thin,
blissful in their baby ignorance

the answer is yet unanswered, yet it shall
come, come, come, sure as Christmastide,
plain as the face of the full moon,
written out in the pages of the Daily
News, the public, the private, the
lawyers letters---all must add up to
something, surely---the tottering figures,
that tower of babel
these debits and credits on creased
papers, the ant-like ink an insult
to good sense, but still, and always,
nil desperandum