In some paisley antithesis

to paradise

a swan defaults on her loan.

When water is rented

and love is leased,

how can we have enough

spoons to gnaw our way through

magnified day?

In the kitchen,

patience burns tea

while virtue gets drunk on

the last of my Italian wine.

The swan will not leave the bank.

Her babies are buried there.

Below an investing, rippled surface,

a fish surveys the

inescapable purveyors of loss.