THE STAND-OFF

THE STAND-OFF


Watched by a chipmunk at the end of the stone wall, I hold a mouthful of coffee in my cheeks, do my best to look as if I know how to live.---Dave Bonta, The Morning Porch, 04-26-12


 What does he know about being alive
 that the chipmunk would not know?
 Would laughing at his misadventure
 be one of his given talents? When he
 mimics the nutcracker with puffed-up
 cheeks worked out by a mouthful
 of caffeinated brew, might the rodent
 hysterically guffaw (in its own style),
 when he chokes on the mis-swallowed
 coffee, coughs his lungs out, spins
 out-of-body in a near-death episode?
 Betting odds: Who gets to laugh last?



–Albert B. Casuga
 05-26-12

Here’s Poem #27 in my poem-a-day project to mark National Poetry Month.