Free Beer by Diane Seuss

I’m the one who can hold a mouthful of salt.
Bring him here, the fool dressed in prison stripes.
I can pray for him, even though his eyes are wild.
I can de-louse the rat.

When I was a kid I invited them all to a puppet show.
There were no puppets; I’d planned no show.
Free beer, I said, and they came.

I’ve seen a puppet theatre.
It resides in the black cavern behind my eyes.
Thoughts are puppets, dangling from their tangled strings.
Bring him here, the one spinning on gloom’s rotisserie.

I’ll section an orange for the wretched bastard.
I’ll ladle him up a mugful of tears.
Free beer, I’ll say, though there is no beer.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/diane-seuss