If I gave a damn

I’d finish the poem

you commissioned

but I haven’t the energy

to concoct

so elaborate

a lie

about

You, Blue Dice, and Squirrel

barrel assin’ down

a swollen Mississippi

to save

Blind Boy Jim’s

’27 National

from foreclosure

and your morally

preposterous

escape route.

How unsettling to know

I beg your fiction.

Explain myself

w/your errant words.

Mike Jurkovic‘s latest full length collection is AmericanMental, (Luchador Press 2020). He is president of Calling All Poets, New Paltz, NY, writes online reviews at All About Jazz and Lightwoodpress, and hosts New Jazz Excursions alternating Saturdays 10am-12pm on WIOX 91.3FM, Catskills, streaming at wioxradio.org. He loves Emily most of all.