Christmas Time in Reno

Old Jews play Chess and 
order Chinese take-out 
at the Dresden resort 
in Nevada, putting silver coins 
with Kurt Vonnegut's face 
into slot machines, 
drawing two Woody Allens 
and a menorah, 
then a Leonard Cohen, 
a bottle of Manischewitz 
and a fortune cookie. 


Jesus puts the Beastie Boys 
on the jukebox as he is 
weary of his company's 
complaints on Bob Dylan, 
that his voice in one song 
that they recall 
from the late fifties, 
was, as they put it, 
Shrewish.


Richard Nixon is lost here 
in the one place he is understood. 
Nervous, neurotic, sweating, 
his clammy hands bustling 
out of the pockets 
of his ill fitting trousers. 
He should have been born 
into  Hassidic robes 
that we might love him less.