The Basket

Comes the time when it’s laterand onto your table the headwaiterputs the bill, and very soon afterrings out the sound of lively laughter—Picking up change, hands like a walrus,and a face like a barndoor’s,and a head without any apparent size,nothing but two eyes—So that’s you, man,or me. I make it as I can,I pick up, I gofaster than they know—Out the door, the street like a night,any night, and no one in sight,but then, well, there she is,old friend Liz—And she opens the door of her cadillac,I step in back,and we’re gone.She turns me on—There are very huge stars, man, in the sky,and from somewhere very far off someone hands me a slice of apple pie,with a gob of white, white ice cream on top of it,and I eat it—Slowly. And while certainlythey are laughing at me, and all around me is racketof these cats not making it, I make itin my wicker basket.