Saturday, December 17, 2022

AT THE OLD PETALUMA BANK


The old Petaluma bank, once an antique emporium 
and before that, a real estate office, and a film house,
cleaned and scrubbed, is now an eyeglass store
filled with pricy lenses, so that we can peer into the past. 
A man with a paunch wanders in, curious, clears his throat, 
sings a Christmas carol, the bank embraces his voice, 
but when he hits the high notes his trousers drop, 
and the embarrassed song wanders off, collides 
with the vault of the ceiling, that much closer to God.

12/17-/28

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