MAKING CHANGE Poems by Philip K. Jason Waiting for Spring • Deep Creek Lake • Birch Tree in Summer • Beached • The Angel Cake Poem • Loss • Leaks • Subtropical • What I Learned • Heliotaxis: A Memorial • Oh Yes • His Painting • Doors • Travelogue • The Synagogues of Spain • St. Thomas Blues • Consumer’s Report • From the Booth • South Florida Chopper Pilot • Suicide Mission • Escrow • Interest • Making Change • Sugar Poem $7.00 US • 44 pages Copyright © 2001 Argonne House Press. ISBN 1-88761-60-2

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Escrow

Gallagher, the comedian who loves sight gags,
waves the crow shaped like an “S” at his grinning fans
before he swings down on the watermelon.

This word and its office-mates
in the business of jargon
are his targets, his attacks
coaxing screams from the powerless
who are sure that loan officers
and settlement attorneys, really
underpaid drones like themselves
and sitting amongst them,
are blown-up balloons of threat
that must be exploded.

Escrow is a kind of legal kidnap/ransom
in which either Jack puts up a percentage
until he can scramble the balance or
Jim puts Jill’s crows in a cage
until the rest of Jill’s stuff
(and the lady herself)
can be brought to the settlement table.

John, the impartial third party,
is bonded to administer the deal;
he holds Jack’s cash / Jill’s (really Jim’s) crows
–Hekyl and Jekyl–until the exchange is consummated.

Now Jill and all her goods
(including the crows put up in good faith)
are out of Jim’s life. He has been paid.
Jack is cash-poor (or heavily in debt),
but Jill and her trained birds,
now under contract,
play nightly in his roadhouse club.

Jekyl plucks away Jill’s skimpy bra,
Hekyl the panties, while Jill contorts into an undulant “S”—
Passing through Escrow, Nevada,
Gallagher catches them at Jack’s Tumbling After,
signs them for an opening act.