mmmdcxlix

21st Century
Postmodernizm

     . . . somebody hands you a tambourine.
          —Sandra Bernhard (in Without You I’m Nothing, 1990)

“happy 4th of july,
everybody,” he said to all,

arms open wide
and with the slightest bow

or curtsy, sounding as earnestly
tongue-in-cheek as he could

muster (which, truth be told,
did sound uncharacteristically

straightforward, as if it had come
directly from that storm-torn

heart that the few of us who thought
we knew him as more than mere

acquaintances so wanted to believe
that he surely had to have

hidden down in there
somewhere) —

and then in a flash,
before the fireworks had even

begun to blow up the night,
he was gone.