The celebrated taverns of Mr. Spuneasta

At the door we paid
not looking for work or medicine
but a dry bed and obscure painting
to cut into our dreams
like fire and wine, we deposed
at the last coffee, the too tall cigarette
proffering a statesman for a spoken wheel
we lost the house of forgetting
and plagiarized carriages of tokens
for talking herbs and festered outsiders
like salads at the dawn of matrimony’s haunting appraisal