Zero Sum Game

Someone better be careful
Global warming has other implications
This cafe just proved to me
There's a ZSG going on here

Between the gorgeousness of women
And the average winter temperatures
However, there must be a lag - a glitch
Because the earth is getting hotter

And so are they - up here in Bemidji

So what?

(do you know what a ZSG is?
ask me or Aaron Abrams
any mathematician or logician can tell you the answer
but you see - me and Aaron
We'll give you the answer -
And we'll make it funny
Or we'll couch it in a poem about pain
Or both - possibly both (Aaron's likely to focus more on the humour))

Anyway, as I said, so what?

You can repeat affirmations
And espouse the tenets of Christian Science
Wherein evil and suffering are illusions
Of this, our failing Mortal Mind
Or attend workshops on co-dependence
12 Step meetings, 45 minute meditation sessions
Of course don't forget martial arts and weightlifting

And in this immortal sun which you'd construct to cling to
The ice fishermen still stomp their feet
If they can't afford to buy a shed and an ice stud ATV
To haul the thing
And I still sit drinking mango tea and watching
These 20whatever angels coming and going
Waiting to walk in the pines - in the wind - in the grey
It's not cold, but too cold for the ice to groan with thawing

At her house, my daughter sleeps, delicately mumbling things
And curled on her stomach
My son sleeps, even more delicate, his lashes gossamer
And his emotions gauze
She sleeps as well, ill, broke, lovelier than ever
Still as tough as nails, still the one to lose her wallet
Right before the crucial airline flight

We're basking in this deathless, warmthless, sunlight
Me and all these other creatures - just basking

While I walk off alone into the birches
Somewhere someone must be gaining something

- written @ Cabin House Cafe
Bemidji, MN
With the ex-wife and my kids napping at her house