What’s on tap? I asked the barmaid.
The barmaid gave me the beer menu.
I see you don’t have the one I want.
What’s that? she asked. Lethe, I said.
I never heard of Lethe, she said,
pronouncing it leth. It’s Lethe, I said.
It’s the name of a river in hell.
Oh, she said. Isn’t that the Styx?
she said, pronouncing it stikes. That’s
a different river, I said. The Styx is
the one you cross to get to hell,
the underworld. The Lethe is the one 
you drink from once you’re there 
to wash away all your memories, I said. 
You forget everything about the upper
world.  Oh, she said. I guess that means
we do have it on tap. All the beers do 
that, make you forget, don’t they? 
she said. Like Lethe IPA, Lethe amber
ale, Lethe stout, Lethe red, Lethe wheat?
She was pronouncing it right. Yes, I said. 
You’re  absolutely right. I’ll have a Lethe 
stout. She wasn’t as dumb as she looked.
                        

When I am old, I want a cane.
I want to be the third part of the Sphinx’s riddle.
I want to go on three legs in the morning.
I want to go on three legs in the afternoon.
I want to go on three legs in the evening.
I want to tell the maker of the cane, “Spare no expense.”
I want to tell the maker of the cane, “Make the shaft from the stoutest oak.”
I want to tell the maker of the cane, “Fashion the knob handle from the purest 
of silver in the likeness of the full moon.”
I want to tell the maker of the cane, “Attach a tip of the hardest brass
so that it will sing on the pavement, so that it will dance a tap dance, a tap dance.”
I want a cane when I am old.
I want to dance when I am old.
I want to dance a brass tap dance on my grave.