ENTREATY

I come up from the subway, where hunchbacks play
the accordion and drag long bags of laundry. I head
for the all-night deli, where a bulb has flickered out,
so it shouts to me, "ALL IGHT...ALL IGHT...ALL LIGHT"
I step beneath its canopy, to let the folds of harsh florescence take me in, and I look around,
witnessing the busy litter of late-night items:
oranges wrapped in newspaper, cantaloupe chunks
steaming, and the coffee sodas all laden with a yet
undiscovered poison. It's in their bright, quick
arrangements that I suddenly see a randomgrammar; foil wrap and chemically induced color
all flashing out mantras I begin to recite convulsively.

I see Abraham Lincoln watching a View-Master presentation
of the Moon Launch and saying, "There's not a free man
among them" and then wondering, "Is my check in the mail yet?"
I see the CEOs of Microsoft smearing their bodies
with bear fat to keep warm for the winter, while outside
Xerox machines spit out replicas of the rain forest,
inch by square inch. I see the new fruit glowing
like an emergency inside my vultured grip.
I say, "The story is dying, the story is dying. Don't let the story die yet..."