He was Popeye the Sailor Man
--at least in Picture book and poem
the mind falling from a drooping ledge,
thrust of twilight though working
up to the bargaining edge of words ...
Then, synchronicity and cuteness
aside, the all too old
pretending became the
gaping edge of Popeye's
spinach can, a soul lost
not to Sweet Pea or Olive
Oil, but barnacle and
rip-tides of a brain
slipping its moorings free.