1.
When I emerge from this brief
case of sedation, drawled the poet
in his Montréalais growl, I’ll be
arrayed in robes of starlight.
Then we’ll dance.

2.
It’s just too easy to imagine spies
in Sixties’ palettes, knife-crease pants
far more alcohol than today’s meek
livers and doctors would chance; the case
swung well, two kinds of knock-out.

3.
A writer carries one, too; full of verbiage
purpose-built to press-gang cowboys
and Indians alike into imagination’s service. Many
a Jack Tar sailed too close to the wind from it, and found
himself Shanghai’d into seas of purple prose.

4.
Then there’s the other criminal sort
that cohort; were they kind, they might
devise such a case from which to offer
to ladies of delicate mein, and gentle men
a selection of nostrums for calm amidst robbery.

5.
Then there’s the Sun
through April’s bare morning branches
setting alight toes, revealing the extent of bone
in flesh, indulgence styled as craft, inspiration
or excuse for typing unbrushed, eyes at half-mast.

Today’s image by Gerd Altmann on pixabay.com, and I confess to being startled at how easy it was to find something so fun and fitting, so fast. We’re in the homestretch now, and today’s prompt, ‘briefcase of sedation’ is as unlikely as they come…