Sunny Lake Crazy

*Image: “The Intimates,” Rex Wilder, Nikon SLR, October 20, 2015, Venice Canals.*

The absent-minded
Looks sheeting the nurses’
Faces are blasphemous
Here at sunny Lake Crazy.
I am condescended to
Like a walking diaper
At best, except it’s my head
That’s incontinent.
This woman, if I flirt
With her now, it’d
Be like the old man
In the wheelchair
Who pinches the nurse’s
Ass. For all I know
I’m limp all over.
She’d slap my wrist
While looking
At her watch & enter
The incident in her log.
I can’t even get
A pity face this morning.
Not even from
The man in the mirror.

Rex Wilder has published poetry in Poetry (Chicago), TLS (London), The Nation, The National Review, The New Republic, Yale Review, Harvard Review, Antioch Review, Ploughshares and many anthologies. Rex has published four books.

Image: “The Intimates,” Rex Wilder, Nikon SLR, October 20, 2015, Venice Canals. This photo, among others, will be included in an upcoming volume from Chatwin Books in Seattle which features many images of the beautiful flora, fauna and bridges of this historical urban oasis.