A Mardi Gras Psalm

We throw hands on the front porch tonight
we chase the dinner cock at sunrise
don't show me your face, stranger
let me fall in love with the mask
     and then be surprised

somebody's cousin up on the back of the flatbed
french crooner with a fiddle crooked in his hand
crack strangers in a roadside ditch like unleavened bread

these Carencro boys aint built for a brawl
aint nobody's fault
hot glue poets parade to pasture like tattered hens
into sacral mardi gras tent
two-step and pass the copper liquor around.

TA