No Stake in the Game (poem)

No Stake in the Game

The hour seemed hot

And the malefactor

not alone in gauging how the wind was blowing

conditions dry enough like sarcasm

Imagine    towering figures

turning brat    Marshall plan negotiators

men like that

Gnomes, they prove, listening under toadstools

Galloping gourmands    Saturns

never wrong…that is…never a wrong ingredient

in the stew

The hour seems hot

And the southwest winds

And the thought of cool advice

From California friends

Not friends but flight technicians

Lonely in pursuit of patriotic memes

Camouflage and mirrored lens and child in pink

Hot    and gusting pine straw

Plays like a video in reverse

From the tiered stack

From the ritual bones    smirk

(them possum, fool)

From anything at hand

No Stake in the Game

(2019, Stephanie Foster)