Flowers

Jim Gott and old money don’t mix. There is

no possibility of change. He sent flowers

to the old lady, to no avail. Then he fought

the Chinese laundry over the disputed crease

in his last clean shirt sent by ups; the Chinaman

got a court order that he not be so called.

He makes peanuts: Jim’s thousand a year is viewed

as a decent living: you figure it out.

Old Gott was taken to court, a kind of

maze synod, that September, ornamental

cherry petals littering the streets.

Thirty-eight years later the charge sheet tells us

that he was called The Fiendish. In the distant

future, I shall be as efficient as you.