Four Prose Poems

Across the alley the Calliope of Summer rented an old roominghouse room. All through June the metronome of an empty rockingchair creaked through the screen. But in July clownish moonlight fell across the garbage: an eggshell opened one eye, shook the coff ee grounds from a wig of potato peels, and a smile spread across a banana when cowled in shoppingbags the conductor sprung out of the ashcan. Jack-in-the-box! What music! Accordians of cats, tin drums beat and cymbals trashed while mice nibbled at discarded clarinets. And to bent bugles, clothesline zithers, like kangaroos, the ballerinas in long black topcoats danced all night to soft goat bagpipes.