I see sometimes a boy or man across the way
With 15 years or fewer under a belt he does not wear.
Covered by lethargic hair his pompous ears,
He opens with his purple Bic one or two or three or four
Of six domestic beers, and drinks from one 'round 10 a.m.,
Unimpressed to say the least with spiral-staircased bottlenecks
(Their use he'd find more suited sawed and placed
On Robert Johnson's callused, darkly wedded finger).
He wonders too, and sudden as he often does,
Whether Bluesman's digits might coulda been Satan's too,
Or whether maybe they were just Black Bobby's own to harden,
Like his drunk, melodic, soul sold to devil and to legend.
And when the pills run out, he heads for fish oil capsules,
Pokes their ends with unbent paperclips as liquid slips
Into the smallest glasses he can find among the cabinets,
Which ten years back his mother left him.
And for each fish pill poured, a single cigarette is liberated,
By a dip or a roll in pisces acids and along lines of powder,
Freed like fish in its own right from pink and white
And childproof capsules meant for itching throats
And watering eyes.
Dude.
This is way cooler than science class.
