Jose doesn’t have the excuse of excessive drink
or smoke to pills for his bad memory
but he’ll occasionally put his back to someone
who asks him how he is
and whisper
"Who is he/she/they?"
and if I know,
I’ll provide a brief synopsis of their curriculum vitae
and if I don’t
I’ll make it up
because chaos is incredibly funny.

Jose may learn something in the process
but it will probably be
that Maggie is NOT
a trained scholar of russo-pre-industrial dominatrix techniques
– or if she is,
it’s a pretty astounding coincidence.