Luzon, the Philippines

“How many of these hurlers — how many of them throw spitballs anymore?” asked Pal.

“Five,” said the clown with no shoes.

Flag

“New Kevin Hobster flag here,” said Pal. “Who gives a damn, honestly? It’s so stupid.”

“He told me what it means,” said the clown with the tattoo on his face.

“What?” said Pal.

“It stands for stuff — you know, symbols.”

“Who gives a shit?”

“The plus symbolizes the fact that it’s there and no one knows why — it might stand for something but we’ll never know, and no one ever will. It just is.”

“You gotta be kidding me.”

“And the clover is for the fact that he said he’s half-Irish? And it’s red, the same red that’s on the Polish flag. And he has a blue eye there too, and the blue is the same blue the Italian soccer team wears, and the initials and let’s see … “

“The yellow is the same yellow as the flag of New Jersey.”

“Good, good.”

Hounds

when you draped that houndstooth bikini on
the shower curtain rod, and I found it
wet with salt, I thought of our god, the sun.
I slid it over as I entered the
pressed splash that sprays so strongly and so taut;
pink and blue and clear and red and I feel,
and maybe you feel this way too perhaps,
upon a lay beside the summer surf —
like this warm flash light that needs batteries,
and that fluff from the towel clumsily
romances your spine, and the gleam off your
silhouette you slink steady like a robe
made of halo that is banana-spanked,
inhaled, exhaled, tasted, tasteless, toxic
and thin.