The Weekend Poet’s Mal de Debarquement  

Published in Tulip Tree Press (Humor Issue Fall/Winter 2024)

Like putting foot to land from ocean cruise,
when solid ground arrests the body’s sway,
but the water’s rise and fall continues
behind closed eyes, in bed at end of day,
so turn to weekdays’ lexicon, concrete
and ordered to our work, does fail to purge
the weekend’s lived iambic pulse, whose sweet
demands invade our speech…and thus emerge:   

Dear Sir: I have reviewed the case you press
against my client, and note its central flaw–
your arguments and threats do not impress,
for they rely on fiction, not on law.

Surprised, and yet it’s what I meant to say.
So what the hell, I sent it anyway.