The Disposal Bulletin

by Douglas John Imbrogno

It is a poem
better than any I
might write.

At least, when stopped
at an Ohio interchange.
Pulled off the highway

going from here
to there in my life,
as we do.

A yellow notice,
affixed to poles and signs.
Even to a metal berm.

Some ‘U.S. assets’ 
have been forfeited, 
it proclaims. 

‘All’ are certified.
All ‘high value,’ says
this ‘Disposal Bulletin.’

The asset list follows,
to be auctioned on this
very day at 1 p.m.:

‘Rolexes, Fine Jewelry,
Cartier, Patek Phillippe,
Picasso, Dali.

‘Mr. Brainwash, Pino,
Tarkay, Peter Max,
Andy Warhol …

Lamborghini, Silk
Tabriz.’ And that
is it. The whole list.

Whose 'it' could all this be?
Were these all one
owner’s life largesse?

And, pray tell, who
was Mr. Brainwash?
Did Andy Warhol know?

These questions
agitate my head, as the
light goes red to green.

I am on my way, again,
to where I wish to go.
The auction haunts

me as I drive, going
there to here. A photo
of this visage, studied later,

says at poster’s bottom:
‘Signs will be picked up
after auction.’

All evidence of this
king's (or queen’s) ransom
of stuff, from a

Lamborghini (a cartel
kingpin, perhaps?) to
Peter Max and a Cartier

wiped from the 
interstate interchange,
one day in April 2023.

Thumbnail painting of Picasso, Dali and Warhol by artist Rob Snow.

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