Three cardplayers
in a game of three:
Stick, Twist, Bust.
Three lords of the dance,
Thump, Boot, Headbutt,
rough tongued and tattooed, three liebknechte.
Freelance, hitmen, anyone’s.
Anyone: that huddle at the door,
three fiddlers about to play the Fire Hose Reel.
The three gold-tongued knights of the court
of King Arthur, three horsemen
who are Dürer’s knight, death, the devil.
Umbilicus, the young naval attaché,
Scrotum, the wrinkled old retainer,
Sputum, a Flemish outcast.
Three separate faces
on the night bus, that follow you home,
and know where you live now.