Sisyphus presses on as always,

Lucky rounds the corner,

and a man in a desert stares at a rope.

 

A rhinoceros trumpets just out of sight.

Gene Wilder will not capitulate.

He’ll never be a hero, then,

but he’ll make good chocolate.

 

We can all understand good chocolate.

 

Students doze through coin toss

after coin toss, revitalized

as Guildenstern – or is it Rosencrantz –

exclaims “pornographer”

 

because the teenage mind understands pornography.

 

Yet today Sisyphus reaches his apex,

Godot appears, the desert fades,

Gene accepts his Asiatic fate.

 

Because this morning you peered

over your bowl of corn flakes

a whispered declaration of love

and I found the meaning that eluded

our dear Algerian Stranger.