12 Short Poems Michael Gottlieb THE ARSENAL OF EXCUSES for the likes of us disdaining the laid-on serum mustered missings, ponding, the scarce antimony, the lowering skies an habituation, like hoarding briquettes or reusing one-time pads, As if there were any bona fide aim-points or avenues of access anymore attired in drear accusations, the arsenal of excuses, housed in this listing imago another while-you-wait industry, having arrived and installed itself while we were distracted the way we tried to shore up this face we set to the world, like a threatened seawall         next