Fruit Bonus

Andy Axel

That hawks would
drop dead rabbits
on the roof and leave
them seems less
troubling for the fact
that there’s someone here
whose job it is
to clean them up.
Multiple clocks
front the lobby like
time’s got
some options for you,
an earth scent
like a new grave
at the second ATM.
To rattle off
these details
is to make a postcard
of the place,
to leave the others out
an argument,
but there’s nobody
anywhere I’d wish it on,
and I can’t make
sense of excess still,
that I’m also
how my tenderness
is extra to its objects,
and how it eats up
the one chance at
this planet I’ll
likely ever get.
A man who feels
a zebra with
a blindfold
on the TV
always guesses horse,
it’s obvious,
but what about it
tells us what
we need?
These times, like when
I bought a case
of jeweler’s loupes
on impulse for
a lark, for instance,
or now, scoping out
the video slot
machine to skirt
a deadline and kill
the interval
between sleeps,
have been already
set aside for wasting.
It is from this surplus
that we can even call
it “bonus fruit,”
what’s plunked
into the coin
deposit burned
for good.
Fork it over,
cough it up.
If I know all of
human suffering,
this is a classic
case of being
A vitamin
supplement or two
with continental
do the trick.
I haven’t seen
any people yet
today, only cars.