In a planet of strawberries & cream
when the hangman’s black cloth envelops

Saddam Hussein. My telephone rings, in the silent
atmosphere. Hussein is in mid-descent.

Visionary, that she is my friend Elise, wants me
to pick up a head of lettuce at Price Chopper.

Later, I crane my neck for Elise in the kitchen
like a giraffe. She’s crying over the onions.

She’s hysterical, laughing over the split head
of lettuce & the end of the world coming.

At the end of the hanging, the hangman
eats what remains of the Iraqi soul.

I put a black napkin on guerrilla style.
In this way, the day ended.