The lights over the Mississippi
get swallowed up each and all
by the river’s neighboring trees,
those forests the boat’s casino
swingers long ago forgot. The
trees, therefore aching deep
beneath each base’s rough
exterior, thanks to the deep-
tick rattle of the spun roulette
wheels and the ka-ching!
ka-ching!! ka-ching-ing that
had emanated so endlessly
from each of these boats
with outstretched boughs,
downed the bitter little pills
of twilit light and, moment
arily, their souls were
soothed. But from that
point on, the sky as dark
as within a freshly covered
grave, each riverboat patron’s
head bowed low to the ground
where it stayed, each gambler’s
heart slowed by half and the
rattling roulettes and the slot
machine’s ka-chings went silent
as the boats floated noiselessly
over a crude-oil river cutting
an otherwise glorious land
and its clueless, oafish
population into utterly
irreconcilable halves.
