"Hand Placement Does Not Change" by Colin James

Mother takes her bath at nine

and is benevolent enough

to allow me to reuse her bathwater.

I sat there for a long time just staring.

Uncle Larry phoned

about the annual softball game.

Third base is fluctuating

between parody and metaphor.

Read the newspaper obituaries on the porch.

Ninety-five percent of

all thought is conjecture.

Post was late again

so I read the comics,

that little red-haired girl

is still enticingly noncommittal.