- Frantic laughter drowns out fire fights
- last week next week an hour away by PanAm.
- Tinny band nasal Suzie Wong attempting
- Jumpin' Jack Flash. Failing.
- Hands slide into side slits in red cheong sams
- knock back mai tais and straight shots
- pound tables to give the band the beat.
- It's a gas gas gas. Don't you get it?
- It's a gas gas gas.
- "The Incredible Orsinis" take the floor
- tall graying man in a satin shirt
- arms raised to bring on with a flourish
- "Madame Orsini," a wren of a woman
- walking uncertainly on a medicine ball,
- eyebrows arches of apprehension
- smile an entreaty that goes unseen
- as the off-duty combatants turn to
- the Suzies and the drinks – bored.
- Monsieur Orsini juggles three pins
- drops two. This is just a drag drag drag.
- Madame Orsini may cry at any moment
- but toddles on, mate pointing out
- her wobbly progress as though she were Pavlova,
- retrieving the juggling pins each time
- they escape from his incompetent hands.
- There has to be a story.
- Refuseniks, that's it, they have walked to Vladivostok,
- stowed away, gotten only this close, so far, to Israel,
- where they will once again be – epidemiologists.
- No papers, no money, no local credentials,
- they humiliate themselves for their supper in a
- Hong Kong dive full of stoned Americans
- trying to forget that Charlie is waiting,
- silent, deadly, patient, never breaking
- for Rest and Recreation.
- "The Pitiful Orsinis" at last are taking their bows.
- I stand and applaud, the sound of one fool clapping.
- My tablemates shrug, grin, stand, clap, cheer.
- It's a good game. I throw wadded American dollars at
- "the Puzzled Orsinis." Bills fly from clumsy hands
- all around the floor. Young voices yell
- You're a gas gas gas!
- "The Incredulous Orsinis" – whoever they may be –
- embrace, weeping, and exit left,
- with air fare to Tel Aviv.
