Despite their common name, scapegoats
are seen in the spring and summer.
Take note: the fact that you got dumped
on your anniversary means nothing to the Mounties
kicking down your office door. Life is never fair.
When your office door implodes, no one's there.
You’re a white-collar criminal on the lam, a torn leaf,
plus your pants are short, making you look solemn,
autumnal, too old to unwind at the nautical motel.
On your bedside table, the grit from a cigarillo
mars the glossy cover of Fortune magazine.
On the mattress, turned down sheets reveal a sandbar
of fuchsia sailboats, moon-blue anchors.
Some senior partners had remarked from the start
how you seemed bound to bring trouble to their business.
Dead air piled up on you for a November of reasons.
Crops to a criminal mastermind, fall guys etiolate,
wither and slake the Creator’s thirst for the worst
in hide-outs at the nautical motel.
Their lips tongues and teeth are celestial refugees
embedded in the rubble of a sensual war
