poem: rank and file

[rank and file]

Farah called Tori on
the Daddy line
shook the china
jazzed the jacuzzi
buzzed the itinerant left
of center:
carrie/miranda, celestial
queens of the grassy
knoll, all in
a slather:
cottonwood mirth,
steelhead blather:
7 in line
for the connection:
Di to her babies
Sir Doug to his floundering quintet
niven to cantinflas
j p sousa to the rank and file
cast of partridge family to oblivion
fender to the last teardrop;
Shelley Duvall broke
the line, not yet
posted to the sweet
hereafter, though times
feeling it, days up
laurel canyon, Altman
still babbling in her ear,
no Daddy line, just
incessant flush,
festooned gadabout -
it ached, those nights
in colorado, on
the verge, ducks
in a row, terminal plastic -
she off it or it
off her, she'd given up
that chickenegg
burrito
quandary:
now was the time
to file away
the bits and pieces, all
the inherent flesh,
the little piggies, too,
settle for less,
an audacious decline in
her Queen of Sweden
Sunday
best.