Just Now Between Positions

These, his last,

                          employers, dead

Inexplicably and

Unavailable

              to praise his diligence,

Cast a shadow on his prospects, and he sighed.

Before all this, he

Would have lit a pipe and

                          mused on the past

In aromatic mauve tobacco...Shadows

Baffled pleasantly

              the better rug

Once a bear.

                          Grizzly bear.

He would have enjoyed a smoke with a bear.

Hibernation is

              not unlike a job you fail to love.

He would have enjoyed

Some banter on, and amiable disputation of,

His claim. Or

                          on job loss, in general;

On night air, the fanfare above a curve, a star,

If suitably

              asparkle in public.