an ode to WAIST

WAIST, your homonym is
waste, more in that diminished-faculties-gin-and-tonic
way than in that
waste-of-time way.
Whatever allowed you to surpass New Year’s in St. Louis
will likely remain mysterious.
Was it the threatening Senegalese undertow, unfulfilled
winter expectations, or simply the
weather? Regardless,
we volunteers salute you. You, the perfect wedding of
weaved tresses, mohawks and wenches,
wanton wardrobes, pantsless innings, first place trophies, bus
wheels buried in sand dunes, swilling and
whiskey and February and revelry. Only a weekend, but
well worth 100,000 cfa and extinguished brain cells. Rest assured,
we will wait unwearyingly until WAIST 2008
where we will unleash Mauritania’s wrath like locusts
wiping out softball crops.