Mr. Jack Explains it (For Coleton)

During sips of Saturday morning coffee,

angst burned his tongue,

tiny flames through his body,

his deceived eyes

read the fashion magazine

he never ordered.

Scammer or  a fat finger deal on Amazon?

Dismissing rumblings in the distance,

he herded his thoughts through the mind's desiccated pasture,

Pum-pa-pull,  Pum-pa-pull, Pum-pa-pull,

grew bigger, fuller, more sinister,

with the tick-toking of time.

Now he saw them

sitting under Sycamores

like a despot's newest poo-bahs,

waiting to pounce 

on innocent or other-wise.

Masked and anonymous,

no kin of Deciduous or Conifer,

looking number and dumber than

piles of racoon turd

in long abandoned barns.

No friends of Discourse or Due Process,

meaner than twenty-miles of concertina.

Who dreamed them up?

he questioned his gut,

wanting some explanation

for days of examination, darkly,

in a new norm.

Down at the bottom,

sad and reconciled,

the only thing

he could call them was

Enemy.