Captain Starbucks

Memory is on a track.
She eats her milky way slowly.
She can’t get off, though
her boyfriend’s tried.
She takes out a hatchet
“Ring!” she says.
Demands.
Responsibility is helpless, cannot take.
Responsibility is not my
boyfriend, thinks Memory.
Loyalty is a garbage can
on the train. People spit
out their gum in it, and you know
how Memory hates gum.
Supper wakes up. Memory
is a stomach, a glandular thing, a scrofula. A lotus
blossoming with phlegm, still hating gum, but on a track
not unlike a train except soundless, Memory is
lacking vibration, resonance, yes, but no vibration. This
is why she demands a ring. Responsibility, she thinks,
must have plenty. But Responsibility doesn’t, doesn’t even know
what Memory is talking about, asking for, Responsibility
being only two months old and meeky.