Typo walks into Grimalkin’s Pool Hall,
pockets full of rolled papers,
places four quarters in the green
shadow of the felt cushion,
takes a chair, and chalks
up his pencil.
In the cool quiet of the pool room,
Typo scratches again and again,
and down five games
to one,
contemplates
his mistakes.
Pencil in hand, he
should have kept
to the kitchen,
where the cook laughs
at his filling the pool
table pockets with poems.
In the sun after pool,
Typo pulls from a pocket
one last poem: It’s this one,
and poem in hand, he posts
it to a telephone pole
thick with weathered bills.
The Coming of the Toads 