deck chairs on the titanic

this is not about a
full grown man on a clear blue day
on a sidewalk near San Francisco bay
wearing a down-and-out dingy white and
brown spotted dog costume...
shaggy fur all matted and crusty
knees worn bare, body curved
in full concentration at his task

it’s not about his menagerie
of seven dogs lined up on a bench
in order from smallest to largest, each
patiently letting him fidget and arrange
their brightly cellophaned top hats,
adjusting their rubber-band chin straps,
as if angling their hats just so
will attract an audience
and a pocketful of coins

this is about
the fine line between
brilliance and the absurd,
between enlightenment and insanity…
it’s about a woman finding herself
thirty years into a marriage
calling it quits and hurling
her life into a tiny boat
with a rusty compass and no anchor,
it’s about mistaking the
passionate attentions
from an unexpected messenger
for the message,
it’s about the futility of
trying to set a steady course
through converging waves, surges
and currents… it’s about
improvising and failing and
sinking and starting over.