In the Garden of the Fork-bearded Pot-heads.

So I am sitting in Powell's
drinking what I believe to be
coffee, when a beautiful thing
like a thumb crossed with a
stick of chromed coral
sticks up its branching worm-head
out of my cup and says:

They make a glue that uses science fiction
for bait?

And it is the rise of its tiny voice
into the faux-interrogative that gives me pause.
It isn't rhetorical. It is exactly
a surface vocal affect, a faux-interrogative.

Why?

As I look at the
coffee worm thumb deer oracle thing
more closely as it seems to be reclining
in my coffee cup like a hottub, I notice
that the side of my mug

has become a sort of web-cam
upon the grounds of the Petit Trianon
in the 18th Century. I clearly see
Ange-Jacques Gabriel speaking to a
tiny dog the color of jade, then

both of them
grow iridescent globular back-packs
and float away. Then the image friezes.

Then the worm says something:

Hôtel particulier, peculier.

Just then, a beautiful girl
sits down beside me.

In the time it takes me to sigh
my relief, the worm thumb disappears
down into the brown wholesome
sauce.

I imagine her nude
wearing the worm creature
much enlarged
as a backpack.

She speaks:

He pleases~
And displeases me.

+the poem ends+