Life is not for the Faint of Heart

 

Life is not for the Faint of Heart 50 x 50 cm mixed media on canvas

THE LAST LAUGH

                                     You can pay all you want. Death’s in no hurry.      

                                                                             Anon.

I take vitamins, lots of them, and exercise

with a devotion I can only call metaphysical.

I watch my diet as if it were an addictive series.

A soap opera about salt intake, blood pressure, fiber.

Every couple of months when I was rich

someone who called himself “Sergei Sharapova”—

obviously not related to tennis player

Maria Sharapova who used to emit

orgasmic grunts, if you remember,

each time a ball hit her racket

or smacked against a long brown thigh—

would drop by and we would knock back

a couple of drinks, smoke from the peace pipe,

laugh recklessly, confess guardedly, then I would

hand him a check for a few thousand, a true moment of truth.

Without fail he would say, “Later, dude,” then slip out

the back door. A move he’s often made. With many.

Sometimes he was a girl, with a filthy laugh. She didn’t play tennis.