if fireworks displays
were ever mistaken for funerals,
it must have been then
the final weekend of February
another "last" "end"
squeezed out with grimace
as if
from the bottom of a toothpaste tube,
as if
from the bottom of misery
but still,
it is fair
as we sit at the table
passing around
dead animals
and pithy gifts
and pithy
compliments
the house actors
could not be here
they abandoned us
for easier work
we are merely
understudies
reciting visible
scripts,
because,
it is fair
I have half
(maybe
more than half)
of a child inside of me
who needs to throw
this dish
of cranberry-glazed whatever
back in their sterile
faces
and give them my own take
on karma:
"you are not
the way
I learned to be in this world,
"you are not the way
I understand"