Dilettante

Running through the palace of rabbits
begins with finding one.
Pull your car to the side of the road
and peer under bushes with a light,
eventually you’ll flush one out.
All those years behind a clarinet, a ukulele,
begin to make a kind of sense.
Is there nothing more to the people
that I am determined to make my salvation?
We find the palace has shallow halls,
plastic finery, predictable sex,
the same boring dreams of wealth,
over and again, looking into others’ eyes
hoping, but for our own reflection;
I repeat the phrases you want to hear,
but it’s never what you need to hear.
You catch a quick twitch and an eye.
It turns up and out in a flash.