This Is the Life

We’re about to go all desperado
& isolationist like Swiss bandits
after a cocoa pocket-watch heist; land-

locked peacefully, in any case, seven
pounds of time and candy frowning
in our squeezed palms. We are one

day to another, goatish by the powder
rooms. Sweet-toothed lummoxes, already
spoiled by our yield. A foiled cuckoo stolen

in Zurich makes its way to Milan via alpine
express, nestled in the folds of ermine peltry;
we write long letters to our mistresses in Haarlem

who grow gaunt without our bon-bons. But no.
We gentlemen are mere figments. We lie. This
feint a mumble, the lone scrawl of a Mount

Blanc on blank bedding. No cherry-whips
tonight, no women or wit: a mere sleeper
sick of one more sunk Adriatic night. How

could we not persist?