our turn to host thanksgiving

so by the time the second pair of

in-laws descend our living room

my eyes circle like spotlights

pivoting a foggy lighthouse and my

brain is a flying horse with circus

mirror synapses and my ears

aLL WHIRTE ALBUM helterskelter

and if i still smoked right

now i’d make a reason to

disappear like oh need firewood

and i’d crush the burnt orange 

of a marlboro red into A BACK

PORCH ASH TRAY or if i still

DRANK i’d whisper downstairs

and take a loose screw and trace

the sexy glass lip of jack

swallow twice then pop a handful

of double spearmint tictacs

but instead i let my step-father carve

and ask about the insurance biz

and think this time i’d even take

a steel ring because trying to be

nice while you are waiting for

your ego to be deflated

is like having a concussion

and then volunteering to be

the bell and then handing out free

sledgehammers or

admitting to yourself another

year just dove from shore

and since i can’t make poetry

writing money why not confess

my sins out loud. but a tiny truth pings

a tinny brain: poetry is what you are.

as your other mother-in-law asks you

if you are going to tutor college

essays over winter break and

and as you pass the potatoes

you imagine you are in an animated

movie and your fingers form a megaphone

a phrase forms in a hollow cave of goo:

"hey, all you got? release the scorpions.”

but the real reality is usually what happens

and you haven't submitted anything since 1986

when you appeared in cottonwood next to rita dove 

who was poet laureate for a while. which would 

be even harder to explain to your

other mother-in-law who is wondering

how much she will have to kick

in for the turkey and mashed

but you let this go and lean over

to your wife and then out the window

and stretch and slip the brass ring into your palm

and blink twice and change the ring into car keys

and drive to the still open supermarket and feel

glum about all the sallyalmike's still working 

on thursday afternoon’s eve in the freezer section 

is the vanilla ice cream that the widowed aunt

needs and you forgot. and this, you think,

could ignite the rising action. almost sixty,

but you could be in the keys in one sunset if you 

speed and you could sleep in a campground 

or the back of the volvo or find a local

library somewhere near that hemingway 

bar. and just start editing and polishing 

and unlock your safe hiding forty years

of writing. I mean, what happened to you

anyways? and then you remember it’s not

easy sharing. truth. or lies. and who has

time for poetry. so seventeeth century.

so there you are stuffing your card into a slot

and check it out her name is ethel. they don't

make many ethels anymore. or ruperts. or lillians.

or edwards. and you imagine pulling a blackjack

lever cause even on a losing streak

every real poet needs a backup plan. 

and you snort a bit too loud for ethel

as your eyes line up like three cherries

and she drops that classic

line, “will that be all?”