Auditions

We were catching sun,

What was left of it,

Under the shed of a

Black squat woman, mother enough

To pick Gulder crowns for Peter’s audition.

Oliver de Coque’s Opportunity

On repeat.  And a bottle of stout for her troubles.

She pressed us to have her pepper soup,

We declined. Some news about

Dressed vultures in chicken’s disguise lingered.

Peter is doing two hundred press-ups daily.

He is fitter than a fiddle.

He wants to become the next Ultimate man.

I have grown a paunch.

I want to become the next Joyce

Or Nabokov or Camus or Faulkner

I haven’t picked auditions for my crown.