Leonard Cohen Moves into Our Neighborhood
 

I see you walking past my porch where
surrounded by an iced latte and a pile of dead
poet’s papers, I nail another beak of sugar
skulls to the wooden crossbows of logs.
 
Squirrels nibble at me like I am a shrine as I hang
piñatas and feathered masks, garish
paper umbrellas and turquoise ribboned
wedding dresses. I am a scavenger like you.
 
It is easy to find halos in the trash. You walk
briskly by in your famous blue raincoat. To lure
you to my reading I light every candle
in the house. I am a snake uncoiling
 
on the porch, mindless, poised to swallow my own
tail.  Squirrels climb me, giddy on sugar skeletons,
festooned women’s faces.  I hunger
for what you have.  I follow you, your littered
 
trail of words, while you jab your walking
stick into a metaphor and it unfolds like a trapeze
artist’s umbrella. Your parasol matches your raincoat
and nothing comes together on my porch.
 
My eyes are the wrong color for a snake. 
I dream in the sun, buzzed from too many sips
of coffee and you tap the wire in your grey ballet
slippers. Your raincoat flaps behind you
 
like a heron. You are beholden to no one,
the joiner of no temple nor church.  This poem
having accomplished little will doze into
the Sunday sunset, leaving behind
 
each despairing strophe, a bottle of red
Mercurochrome and few dozen bandages for squirrel
bites while like another beautiful loser
I loaf away the hours my papers instructed.