Pontius Pickaxe and the Okladelphia Thundersixers

eight Cheerios away from the bottom of the bowl,
the last action hero walked to the edge
and
hard-swallowed Tylenol
because
his bravado
and dash
and soundbite bad guy write-‘em-offs
never
outlived his
one dead second
every morning
of spasmodic extinction event,
stretching his palm to moondream
trying to
share a quiet moment
with a hurricane,
and he’d imagine advancing into the depths,
falling, thinking about his
walk: too weak,
old lives: too narrow,
the blood flowing into the straw
the rivers changing their course and
breaking against all nature
but
not this day and perhaps never this day, for
children, raise the day for the next and the next,
and
hero, turn from the edge
and these vespers of direful asides
‘til the next convenient passage,
‘til the storm and its disquiet
yield to the genial sureities
and
we can put this all behind us
and
enjoy that coffee roll