Backbone > Quarter to Three
Bridal Monkey
by Sparrow; Illustration by Thomas McDonough
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Spare Chair
On 79th Street a homeless man asked me, “Spare chair?”

“You mean, ‘Spare change,”

I corrected him.

“No, ‘spare chair,’” he insisted. “I’m tired of sitting on the ground.
I need a chair.”

“Well, I have a spare chair,”

I replied. I went home,

and retrieved the chair.

The man sat on the chair, and looked right and left.

“I love the view from up here,” he said.

Mick Jagger Knot
I tied a Mick Jagger knot
in thread.

The thread was purple.

[Note: A Mick Jagger knot resembles Mick Jagger.]

Palindrome Man
Palindrome Man is a new super-hero,
who solves all worldly problems with palindromes.

(A palindrome, of course, is a word, phrase,
or weather report that is the same backward and forward.)

Recently, his friend Carmen was showing him her bed store.

“No one is buying beds!”

Carmen exclaimed. “The economy is bad. If only I had something cheaper than beds!”

“Stock cots,” replied Palindrome Man.

Poem No. 507
lumon

Caren,
I washed another sweater—the dirtiest of my three sweaters. The midriff of this sweater is white; above that are four thin red stripes; the rest is black. The problem, of course, is the white area, which is intrusively stained. The black still looks beautiful, and the red areas are acceptable (in my view).

My last sweater, the red one, turned the water of the sink a deep brown, like topsoil, as it washed. Afterward, the garment (and me too) was rejuvenated. This red-white-black sweater barely dirtied the sinkwater. And, regrettably, it emerged from the washing little improved. Where did I fail? I used the same hippie dishwashing soap; I agitated the same length of time (with my hands).

Washing can be so disappointing—as much as love.

Monday news,
Sparrow

Answer The Floor
“Answer the
floor,” my wife
said, and I
understood.

My neighbor
downstairs
was knocking
on the floor
(with a chair).

I went down-
stairs, and
entered my
neighbor’s
apartment.
(He keeps it
unlocked.)

Poetry Reading Failure
I decided to give a poetry reading no one would attend.
So I printed 105 flyers with the wrong date,
location, and time, and handed them out.

Two weeks later, I arrived at the poetry reading.

Four people came in the door.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“We saw you carrying a sheaf of poems,
so we followed,” one said.

Canadian Snow
“This is Canadian snow,”

my wife said, as we walked
across the bridge. “I heard
on the radio.”

“It does seem colder than
New York snow,” I opined.

“And falls so slowly,”
Violet said.

21 Cents
I went into an Eckerd and told the cashier,
“I want to give you money.”

“What are you buying?” she asked.

“I’m not buying anything,
I’m just offering you money,” I explained.

“I can’t take your money;
it will unbalance my register,”she said.
“It’s only 21 cents,” I said.

“That doesn’t matter.”

“I can give it to you personally;
you can keep it,” I said.

“I don’t want your money,”
the cashier insisted.

I left the store triumphant.

Definition
Ordinary effects—
the opposite of “special effects”

Bridal Monkey
In parts of South India, a monkey dressed as a bride accompanies each wedding.

Sometimes she will perch on the real bride’s shoulder during the ceremony.

The bridal monkey always eats first at the reception.