Free Entry, Week 4

Animal Fair
Not the elephants but the teeth creeping about the elephants,
that funnels out the Metropoltian Shores Zoo, clinking
down the park bench and into the coin slots of the boardwalk
aracade. Down the alley, raking the door of the Lucky Lou’s
nightclub, the teeth groan, streching like newborn fawns.
Ciggerette butts dint the ground, and some girl’s
rainbow-colored retainer nests in the O, of a fallen Open sign.
This is true:Thirty-four years remains the time it takes a mudflat to dry.
Not dry, but to churn like silver in the hands of a miser.
Not churn, but bubble like the sunburnt back of the boy
at the pinball machine. Other animals, or the teeth of other animals,
buck in the mouths of the guardian. Jowls puff
in unision with coins dripping into the hands of ticket-takers.
And all that echoes in the throats of puddles is the sound of a wet O.