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The preposterous rouses us.
Cardinal in a hardware store,
cupcake in a sock drawer.
The clown was on her way to work.
On offer was another portion
of winter’s tin entrenchment.
Sobbing shrubs, streets empty
until this walking joke appeared—
polka dots, orange wig, a jeer
slathered over her frown.
As she patted herself down
for the keys to her unremarkable car,
she wedged under her free arm
her ginormous red shoes
and didn’t glance at me cruising
past, ungenerous, smug
(is she desperate for love . . .),
greedy as disease for the flowering
corpuscles of her power.
