Last night

I woke to

three mysterious

knocks on my ceiling,

It scared me, because

in my culture

three knocks on the ceiling is

considered a

terrible omen.

***

But then

I remembered

my upstairs neighbor

is

Tony Orlando,

and that is just

what he does.

***

Tony is always

asking people

to take extra steps,

and

nobody in the building

likes extra steps

***

He’ll say.

Why don’t you, tie a yellow ribbon around an old oak tree?

Or,

try knocking twice on the pipe.

***

But come on,

we all know

what Tony really

needs to do

and that is

pay his God damn phone bill.