For Two Nights Only

Left me the day before the opera came

To town, a Fledermaus for bellowed love,
Its banjo on its knee, and would not stay,
However grievously implored. It went,

Trailing a cloud of bosoms, a mist, a wake,
Heaving the way Valkyries do. Left me,
And took up with a drummer from down South,
A treadmill salesman fit to be untied

And smooth as putting greens. Left me just as
A pitcher of tequila sunrises
Mysteriously emptied. Left behind
Headache and backache and cocks without a crow.

These are the days the market crashes, boys
And girls beneath the stripèd awnings; clay
And scalded dogs are everywhere, the heat
Like Tristan, broken kneecaps, broken heart,

And me without a woodwind to my name,
Ensemble on my own. The holidays
Are coming, leave me with a stocking, lumps
Of coal, and acappella, myrrh and myrrh.