Antelope Valley Times

I cup my ear to your chest and 
wait for a wind chime, 
but man does it sound oily in there. 
So it is. Deep-fried, a clucking shame. 
Poor Randall Butterbean: a bird between lucks. 
But isn’t this fine? Isn’t it swell? 
Wouldn’t you rather be kettle-cooked than smeared under a 
rain boot? 
Sidewalk paté, some years later, with no pension to speak of? 
Don’t worry, my chicken— 
for the vigil, I’ve hired the best 
one-man-cockroach-band money can buy! 
              (So the talent is thin, so what? 
You know how cars pile up in the desert.) 
Anyway.         Cockroach maestro, 
won’t you sing our sweet boy downstream? 
Do you think he quivered/ 
Do you think he bled/ 
Wings pinned down/ 
To a hospital bed/ 
Did Jesus pass him/ 
In a white Ferrari/ 
Or did his heart just go              POP!