PERSON Poem: Janáček, by Renoir Gaither

might have dug
the humor in naming

an insect after
Lady Gaga—

Nicaraguan
treehoppers

two horns jutting
from the shoulders

wack fashion sense
vibrant singers—

would have instantly
unpacked metaphoric

relationships between
stealing another’s cukes

and colonialism,
or recognized that

urban heat islands
and currency exchanges

lead back to capitalism,
after all, both cut

from the same vapid cloth,
the invariable vegetation

of vaccine hesitancy
and gospel truths.

Leoš might have hooked
up with a Moravian Fraulein

just to luxuriate on folktales
based on a bulldog

named Crowbar that barfed
cold turkey from daily jaunts

with its owner to some Brno
tavern, warm beer as stackable

as silver, the inebriated
wit seated down counter

as indivisible and untidy
as an odd integer peering

into a timepiece, and
wizened barflies dreaming

aloud about a future
a century hence

with insects whose children
slowly ransack ash trees

along the boulevard,
newcomers to the game.