Maplewood

.

"it's turned into the
most fun thing,"
all the world a pub-
crawl
and all the men and
women
merely players

performing rites
for their slowly
melting
dissolving rights
in a festival of farewell, one last
stand,
get up,
stand up,

light up
and smoke
pours through a loop-
hole in legal Minnesota
"The law was
enacted to protect Minnesotans from
the serious
health
effects of secondhand smoke,"
what a
joke

turning the ban
into stageplay
parody.

and you
who live by the
book, surely you
don't want to
end
up in a morgue, deceased, the
lung
a gray smoke riddled
sponge
as contracted in
bars. never
a drink, officers
the smoke it
was
the sole
cause of death.

fight till your last
bland
breath
against the bar
bum crowd
close down these
underground
covert theatres
and fine them. they
have no moral
fibre.
make them pay!

***

imagine what
would happen if these
people
started enjoying
their resistance, with
nobody to tell them
what to do
without looking
completely ridiculous.

if health officials
acquired
a sense of humor.