LAUGHTER IS CLOSE by David Rivard
Laughter is close, even if it’s
just the schadenfreude
of middle-school girls,
their juicy, eye-rolling, malicious
glee flying
down the street (like a tiny pink slug
in a pigeon’s beak), hotting up
the air—why pretend
you can’t hear? Laughter,
the only eternity
that’s real. Laughter
and its toothy
lift off, even
when toxic. “Save me”
is what’s written
on the faces of so many
passing strangers,
“save me” & “fuck you.”
So the ancient Tibetan masters
teach, focused as they are
both by the attar of sage burning
and the wailing of toddlers
by a septic tank—
a thousand years dead,
these teachers,
but still dreaming
they’re fast asleep
in their boyhood beds.
