Misplaced Adoration

 50-Word Stories (Online)  July 2024

The sun sits pretty and
all of its well-tanned followers
look up and smile, say ahhhh,
and stretch themselves out
on the low-tide sands or on
Grandma’s hand-made picnic quilt
in the high-noon high-grass pasture,
basking and happy.
                               But everybody
knows this: All the really cool people
worship the moon.

From Hopewell To Halifax

 

PoetryBreakfast (Online) April 2024 

I have strolled on the seafloor
at the Bay of Fundy, wandered  
among The Hopewell Rocks, 
occasionally flattening myself 
into their low-tide crevices 
like an ancient sailor’s skeleton 
watching the tides come and go 
to strip and bury the shoreline. 

And I’ve seen their murky furrows 
vanish and reappear and 
vanish and reappear again 
so many times  
I’ve come to believe that 
nothing ever vanishes, 
that all things vanished  
always reappear and  
always reappear again, 
always the same 
but different. 

But today, instead  
(but somehow again)  
I’m hundreds of miles away 
and it’s bumper to bumper
in downtown Halifax, 
and I’m waiting behind the bus 
on University Avenue, 
waiting for the light to change, 
for the pedestrians to crosswalk,  
for the bus to move 
in and out of traffic 
like the Bay of Fundy tides 
always coming and going, 
creating a tidal flow of humanity 
appearing and reappearing 
but always the same 
the same.  

(senryu)

 

LEAF (Vol.2)
Journal of The Daily Haiku
(Online) December 2023

 

troubled times indeed

no soaring sing-along tunes

—forgotten lyrics—

Modern Warfare

COLLATERAL - Online (w/ audio) November 2023 

Someone else filed the reports 
and someone else read them,
passed them on to someone else
who organized the surveillance
that generated the phone call
that aided another someone 
to determine the coordinates,
launch and guide the drone, set it
to hover high above the village,
laser the tiny target’s rooftop
so that the silently incoming missile 
couldn’t possibly miss.

All he did was pull the trigger.

l'objet sombre

 Brave & Reckless (Print Anthology Support) October 2023

turn it over tenderly
turn it over tenderly
shhhh   shhh   shh
look at this a minute
see look how it’s dark
see how it’s dark here
how it curves how it’s
hard to see look at it
look at it lookit this,
man, I’m tellin ya true:
sure as shit it’s hardly
even here this minute

Accompaniment

 A Story In 100 Words (Online) July 2023

Almost every morning
it’s the same old ambient toss-up:
Susumu Yokota or Lazybatusu.

Some days, neither flips his switch;
some days: nothing but nothing. Silence.
(He neither needs nor wants either one.)

Some days—especially days he’s up early—
he just sits and types, humming his own theme:
he calls it Lazysusubatsumu Yakotoma.

He hums and writes and writes again
until everything comes out right,
or his fingers start to bleed.

Even then, though,
intent on his mission
he encourages the hemorrhage.

He’s stumbled onto something good;
he’s just got to keep at it
until it sings on its own.

The Calling

Tiny Seed Literary Journal (Online / Print anthology) July 2023

Blood-red hibiscus grew

further back from the riverbank
sun-dappled
where I dared not often go;
soft green breezes
in a periwinkle sky
now shimmered tiny bloomlets
now held them an instant in balance
calling

Foxglove and hyacinth mingled there
deeper in the forest, wild
heavy with scent and delicately swayed.

Songbirds by the waterfall
peering down at the pool
found its surface still:
unbroken but for two rootless blossoms
tossed gently to the current
from the hands of almost lovers below.

Camaraderie Uninterrupted

 A Story In 100 Words (Online)  May 2023

I had a friend who rescued a dog. He told me it could speak. Russian. He knew that I was bilingual, so he asked me to do some translation.

I sat patiently, listening.  Nothing.  I’d almost given up waiting. Then I heard it.  It was Russian, alright, with a Labradoodle accent.

Sadly though, it was total nonsense: “Spotted carats snipe phlegm kisses.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell my friend about his furrier friend’s crazed utterance. Instead, I said I couldn’t translate for him because I thought it might be Hungarian.

Someone else would have to burst his bubble.

Visitations (Anthology)

 

Red Wolf Editions - PDF March 2023

Visitations

An Author Collection / Anthology of eighteen poems, all previously published by Red Wolf Journal over the past decade or so.

Titles Included:

Visitations 
Looking Glass
I Heard Voices 
Rust, Pepper 
Relative Distance 
Altered Itinerary 
The Quest 
Love Conquers All 
Overheard 
Ginsberg’s Omelet 
Metamorphosis 
Whistler’s Annunciation 
Chase 
Sundress 
How Billy Writes A Play 
Well 
Qi 
As It Should Be 

(a winter haiku)

 Plum Tree Tavern - Winter Haiku Collection (Online) February 2023

January crows

stare down from barest branches

black and white morning

Payback

 

A Story In 100 Words (Online) February 2023

On their Golden Anniversary, he started calling her by different names and nicknames on a random basis – Stewie and Stewbabe, Audrey, Boobala, Doc, Squig, and so on – knowing he’d never forget her real name, but figuring that when he finally reached the peak of Mt. Alzheimer he’d be able to cover it up a little longer, give her less to worry about.

One morning, she asked him, “Did you sleep well, ummm…” hesitating as if trying to recall his name.

“Yes I did,” he replied, frowning at her smile.

After that, he knew he’d never play the alias game again.

Relative Distance

Red Wolf Journal (Online) January 2023

RWJ Winter/Spring Anthology (Online) March 2023

Red Wolf Editions (Online Author’s Collection; Visitations) – March 2023

I suppose I’ll be up late again tonight,
with the white high full moon
in the cold, almost-springtime sky
banging on the windowsill
screaming to be let in,
and you so far away.

I suppose that in two months’ time
the grass will have greened
and I will lie again in your arms,
having forgotten completely
the shadows of these midnight clouds
racing across the deadleaf lawn. 

Tonight, though,
it’s late and I’m awake,
thinking of you
staring up at the same silent moon
                   a quarter million miles away.

 

As It Should Be

Red Wolf Journal (online) January 2023

RWJ Winter/Spring Anthology (Online) March 2023

Red Wolf Editions: Visitations (Online Author’s Collection) – March 2023

This morning’s forecast

requires no translation.

There is nothing unintelligible

about the sunshine, nothing

open to interpretation, nothing

equivocal.  No. 

                          This morning

the lawn—if brown can be a lawn,

if a lawn is a mat of last year’s leaves—

this morning, then, at long last

is finally and totally frost-free,

no snow left anywhere, just a

slowly warming too-long cold

and the promise of a soon Spring.

 

 

 

  

Rust, Pepper

Red Wolf Journal (Online) January 2023

RWJ Winter/Spring Anthology (Online) March 2023

Red Wolf Editions: Visitations (Online Author’s Collection) March 2023

Red Wolf Journal   (Online Leaflet)  March 2024

It’s hard, living here, not to
want to be a tender poet, not to
wax poetic and rhapsodic when I
step out onto the deck at dawn
as the last tendrils of fog fade,
the first birdsong of the day
rising, a delicate prelude; hard
not to give in, not to write
about wispy cloud and fragile
early leaf unfurling in early Spring. 

But I’m not like that. No.
Morning’s birdsong is for nerds.
Not for me the silver sunrise; rust is
where I really live. Give me instead
the mid-afternoon call of ravenous
crows, swooping down on carrion. 

I can tell you this much:
faced with a panful of fresh-caught
trout, I’ll choose the coarse-ground
pepper every time, leave the lilt of
saffron for some other kind of poet.

I Heard Voices

 Red Wolf Journal (Online) January 2023

RWJ Winter/Spring Anthology (Online) March 2023

Red Wolf Editions: Visitations (Online Author’s Collection) March 2023

I heard voices
on the long highway home from Sutton
and I missed you when the sun went down.

I heard voices in the dashboard, singing.
I turned up the volume and I missed you.
I thought about Graffiti Overpass
thirty years ago in Stafford Springs:
“Love conquers all,” it said; “The strong will endure.”

I heard voices on the rise near Coventry
and I missed you when the sun went down.
As the darkness rose around me
I thought about you, that night in Forest Park,
the darkest rose in the garden,
and the long highway home, alone.

Recessional

 50-Word Stories (Online)  December 2022

“No, no, no,” he said, his voice fading. “I see what you mean. I get it. I get it,” but his delivery had become a mere mumble as he entered the unlit room at the far end of the hall, softly closing the door behind him, making everything even darker.

Plum Tree Tavern (Online) November 2022

Autumn Moon Festival Issue

last night’s fullest moon

still sings, bell-clear, this morning

—Autumn’s aria—

Fine Point

 50- Word Stories (Online) May 2019

It wasn’t until his third unsuccessful attempt to get something—anything—worthwhile onto paper that he realized he’d been using the wrong pen. Somehow, a 0.7 had made it into his pocket along with his favored 1.0 and he’d been accidentally selecting it, thus guaranteeing his dissatisfaction with the outcome.

The Arsonist

 Potato Soup Journal (10-Word Story) (online) September 2022

He warmed her heart.
He got her hot.
Boom.
Ash.

But First, A Word From Our Sponsors

 Cow - Pure Slush Books

Anthology (Print / eBook, June 2022)

(This piece is too lengthy (500 words) to post here in its entirety.  Here's the opening paragraph. The whole piece is delivered as a TV documentary voice-over).

Today, ladies and gentlemen, we’ll look at one of the world’s foremost chefs, and how he creates his masterpiece.  The key is control: from the feedlot to the slaughterhouse, from the slaughterhouse to the skillet, and from there to a serving platter, the truly great chefs exercise complete and total control over even the tiniest details of meal preparation. 

Civil (re)Engineering

The Drabble (Online) May 2022

We should hand everybody a mirror,

tell them to have a good long look,
ask if that’s who they really want to be.

We should offer everybody a rifle,
see who’s interested in having one,
and hand them the mirror again instead.

We should give everyone a photo album
with photos of everyone else’s family.

We should build a planetary dinner table. 

Pyrrhicism

Potato Soup Journal (10-Word Story) (Online) May 2022 

“Peace, at last!” said the final soldier to no one.

Candy

Light on the Walls of Life (Jambu Press)

Print Anthology - Ferlinghetti Tribute (April 2022)

I’d like to live upstairs from a candy store.

Over the years, I’ve read a few great poems
about life amid candy:
                                 Just this morning,
on my reluctant drive to work, I stopped
at the rest area and read all about how
Pinsky wakes up with his new love, looks down
at the sweetshop’s wrinkled awning, watches
an early fog lifting to reveal pigeons pecking
at rainbowed gutters;
                                and the venerable old
Ferlinghetti, ages and ages ago, wrote about
falling  in love with unreality amid licorice and
jellybeans on a gloomy September afternoon
in the pennycandystore beyond the El.
                                                       Decades
later, sometime in my early twenties, a baby
poet, I vowed that I’d pitch a tent outside
Munson’s Kandy Kitchen, and live on chocolate
and peanut butter eggs.
                                    I’m not so old, nor
blind, now, looking back, to see I should have
kept that vow. 

Backyard Olympics Failure

 50-Word Stories (Online) March 2022

It wasn’t until the final, near-miss horseshoe toss was disputed that things escalated into open warfare. Heavy metal shrapnel flew in almost every direction, none of it intended for its usual targets, all of it meant to send an unmistakably on-target message of protest. Neither team took home the gold.

Attendance

 The Birdseed (Online) March 2022

He put a checkmark in the ledger next to his own name in the column marked “Absent/Unexcused”.  He was only a couple of minutes late. No one really wanted to get down to business, anyway. No one wanted to stay, but no one dared leave.  Only four or five of them had ever actually been struck by lightning. Two were twins, but their identical siblings were elsewhere. Everyone was dreaming, hoping for better days in far more hospitable places, but everyone was, after all, only dreaming and—sadly—everyone knew they were only dreaming. No one dared to wake up.

No one could wait for it all to be over with, least of all him. He checked his watch and double-checked the ledger; noted his own unexcused absence.  He closed his eyes and made a silent wish.

Shadowfax Marie

 A Story In 100 Words (Online) March 2022

Just before he’s seventy, just before 7:00 AM he finds Shadowfax Marie at the 6068 Spa, lets her drift him into his morning pages, levitate him, lets her let him forget everything, dismiss all of his desires–even his morning coffee, even his Beloved (still in bed, dreaming he’s still there, sleeping, beside her).

 

But his wings are only borrowed and insubstantial. Before he can float away, he remembers his flesh, recalls his agenda, and realizes that there’s a day ahead during which Shadowfax Marie will inevitably fade; a day filled with no sound worth hearing, no vision worth sharing.

 

Lariateer

 A Story In 100 Words (Online) February 2022

When he finally finishes his regular morning exercise, he considers going back through his earliest journals and numbering the pages but—smart as he is—he knows he can’t count that high. He thinks about all the pens he’s ever used, tries to calculate how many oceans of ink he’s expended; imagines uncurling his cursive and deconstructing his print, laying out all of his pen strokes end-to-end and seeing just how many times the line would circle the globe, or if maybe it would form a lifeline out into space to lasso the moon or play jump rope with Mars.

Centurion Saturday

A Story In 100 Words (Online) February 2022

He’s feeling less than complete this morning. Some parts have vanished; most just haven’t woken up yet; a couple are only pretending to be there. But for the most part, for one inexplicable reason or another, he’s feeling incomplete.

 Maybe it’s just because it’s Saturday morning. And early. Very early. Too early for even a gigantic apple fritter to convince him that it’s really there and that he’s actually eating it.  Too early altogether for small-talk local television chat fests, and certainly way too early for the National or World News Countdown-To-Oblivion Update.

 All he needs is seven magic words.

As Directed

Appointment At 10:30 (Anthology)

Pure Slush Books Vol. 22

Print & ePub Feb. 2022

It was 10:15, so he only had about ten minutes to put together a back-up plan, including a list of potential support providers in the community that could be finagled into housing his client in case of an emergency.

It wasn’t a back-up plan, really, but an emergency fallback disaster plan, outlining what to do when the plan and the back-up plan failed—as they invariably did. He’d been through this procedure half a dozen times in his two years since joining the agency, and every time the plan, the back-up plan, and the fall-back had all failed and he ended up driving out at some ungodly hour to pick up the client, who inevitably spent the balance of the weekend alternately sleeping on his couch and standing out on the back lawn, screaming obscenities.

Despite his complaints about the impossibility of locating willing support providers, the Supervisors insisted that he arrive at the staff meeting with the names of at least five qualified individuals.

He used the last few minutes before the meeting to their best advantage. In his cubicle, sitting at his computer, he gathered dozens of names. 

Then he printed out his resignation, attached it to the staff directory, and stepped around the corner into the conference room.

Covenant

 Vita Brevis Press (Print Anthology III) December 2021

Nothing Divine Dies (Nature Poetry)

---------[||]--------- 

There is nothing ambiguous about

the absence of sunshine this morning;

nothing open to interpretation; nothing

equivocal.  No. This morning

on the lawn—if brown can be a lawn,

if a lawn can be a mat of last year’s leaves—

this morning’s lawn, then, is frost alone,

no new snow anywhere, just cold

and a frosty glaze, the promise

of impending winter.

The Tell

 Potato Soup Journal (Online) (10-word story) October 2021

When he grasps, he gasps. Then you know he knows.

QI

Red Wolf Journal (Online) September 2021

Anthologized (PDF)  February 2022

Red Wolf Editions: Visitations (Online Author’s Collection) March 2023

I think I remember feeling it,
silently ebbing and flowing,
altering everything about me.

I recall my first encounter,
ages ago, at the University
in that meditation class,

OM-ing and focusing on breath
under the blue-sky maples
with Professor Gurumeister;

and I guess I sailed, then,
unanchored, adrift, imagining
I could avoid current events.

But I’m almost ancient now, and
the Morning News reminds me
I’ve forgotten the Guru’s name.

No matter; no matter. Nothing
matters anymore; I breathe deep,
unfurl my inner sail, and I’m gone.

Looking Glass

 Red Wolf Journal (Online) September 2021

Anthologized (PDF)  February 2022

Red Wolf Editions: Visitations (Online Author’s Collection) March 2023

It seems like all the windows
we used to look through
to see our bright futures
have turned into dark,
accusatory mirrors
intent on reminding us
of our failed yesterdays
and our current miasma.

It seems like yesterday’s
beneficent light-givers
have turned into dark
foreboding crystal balls
into which we’re forced
to gaze at tomorrow’s
inevitable nightmares.

 

Secured Transport

25 Miles From Here (Anthology)
Pure Slush Books Vol 21
Print & e-Pub (August 2021)

 

Halfway to the crisis bed,
after he’d already convinced himself
that the driver was an alien
and his support person had been
duped into helping him be kidnapped,
he made his first attempt at escape,
only to be thwarted
by the automatic child-safety locks.
 
He pounded on the window
once or twice,
but not hard enough to break it,
remembering the gash and the
subsequent sutures
his last such action had netted him.
 
He was pretty sure he’d
starve to death
before they’d consider
slowing down enough
even for a drive-through.
 
He hadn’t eaten
in over five hundred years.

They tried to get him
to take a pill, but he was
too smart for that,
feigning sleep
between his ranting tantrums
and screaming incessantly
just to keep himself awake
whenever he thought he might nod off.
 
When they finally arrived,
he knew he’d been there before
—many times—
but he had no idea
where the hell he was.  
 

The Phoenix Retires

 Fixator Press (Online) August 2021

I’d rise from these ashes
but these ashes comfort me.
 
These ashes are all I have now;
these grey remains are my home,
far more accommodating
than even the most beautiful
sunrise, more promising than
any new day, these days.
 
These days are so dark,
rising from these ashes
offers no promise; offers
only another deadly pyre,
another chance to ash
and disappear again.
 
I will forego feathers;
ash will be my new forever. 

Preparation

 In Parentheses  (Print & Online July 2021)

It’s an even-numbered day and
the grass is mowed evenly, the grass
is as green as grass can be, and
its medicinal properties could not
—under any foreseeable circumstances—
be more potent and restorative.

It’s an even-numbered day and
there are no plans to visit doctors;
no appointments to make or attend,
no preparations to undertake,
no recuperative balms; no ointments
or magic pills. No exercise required.

He breathes and breathes and
breathes and breathes.

Tomorrow, however, will be odd.
The grass will be irrelevant and
ineffective; the sky itself will be
a sickly pink. The air he breathes
and the water he drinks and all of
his idle thoughts will be dredged in
pink. As much as he hates doctors
and all things medically related,
all things allegedly therapeutic,
he hates the pink even more.

He looks forward to the time when,
rising before the light arrives,
he feels no need to inform himself
of the day’s odd or even number;
does not have to prepare for either
pink or green; has no need to call
his doctors, awaits no doctor’s call.

He looks forward to becoming
his colorless, numberless self.

Postprandial

 50-WordStories (Online) July 2021

 “Thank you, Darling, that’s just exactly what I needed,” he said without even looking up, too busy shoveling the meal’s few delectable remnants into his drooling face; too insensitive and neglectful to provide the eye contact every great chef both craves and deserves.

“You’re welcome,” she replied, mentally debating antidotes.

Double Yolk - Over Easy

 50 - Word Stories (Online) June 2021

He’d been taught that cracking an egg and finding a double yolk was a good omen. Today he discovered it isn’t always true. He opened one this morning, before anyone else was awake; before they found him in the kitchen; before they called the ambulance; before it drove away, slowly. 

The Fade

A Story In 100 Words (Online)  April 2021

There wasn’t much to see, wasn’t much to be seen, and he knew it. He knew every inch of the room; had taken its inventory a million billion times, day in and day out since his sentence had begun. Nothing but crumbs and dust and a bed he’d never made.

He hadn’t heard a thing but his own thoughts in ages, and even they were beginning to fade. Mostly all he had these days was the memory of sound: screams, sobs, and the slamming of doors.

The only face he’d seen was his own, smiling, on the tattered magazine cover. 

If Only

 The Drabble (Online) March 2021

Oh, if only it were fifteen degrees warmer, we’d be inching above zero and I’d consider going out for a Saturday morning drive just to absorb a little almost-sub-zero sunshine, maybe buy My Beloved an apple fritter and try not to eat it on the ride home, listening to “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” on NPR and waving at the vacant table where I’d usually be spending my coffee-and-journal morning at Montgomery’s Café with a double slice of Mediterranean quiche, a fresh-from-the-oven Blondie, and an oversized mug of French Roast, black, with a double shot of Kahlua for good measure.

Tuesday Afternoon Is Almost Never Ending

 Cabinet Of Heed (Online) March 2021

It’s eight below zero at half-past noon, but when he goes by to check on her he finds her out on the porch in a T-shirt, smoking a cigarette and only almost coherent.

She tells him the landlord won’t let her smoke inside and, besides, there’s no air in there anyway because the music’s too loud.

He gets her inside as quickly as he can, even though she insists on a second smoke and sings a couple choruses of Lady Madonna while she inhales and exhales equal measures of smoke and crystallized air.

Inside, he tries to get her into a warm shower but discovers that, no matter how long he lets it run, there’s no hot water.
She tells him the landlord’s from Pittsburgh and doesn’t believe in hot water.

The next day, he drives out again and finds her frozen to almost death, stretched out nearly naked on her unmade bed, a towel wrapped around her head, all the windows open wide, and the turntable skipping and spinning, its blare repeating, “isten to the music playing / isten to the music playing / isten to the music playing…”

Visitations

Red Wolf Journal (Online) March 2021

Red Wolf Journal (PDF Anthology)  August 2021

"My Dream Of You"

Red Wolf Editions: Visitations (Online Author’s Collection) March 2023

Last night, sleeping, alone, I saw her once again,
three times, as I’d often seen her in dreams before:

once at recycling, recycling bottles and promises,
tossing the clatterous mass into the waiting container,

and twice at the Price Chopper: once in the lot,
parking in her favorite space, her face a smile

like the store was hers alone, owning everything
in it and around it, and loving everything about it;

and again in aisle five, buying toothpaste and
mascara, aspirin and a brush, a bunch of stuff

(she would have said) she’d never need in heaven.

And even now, today, a Tuesday or a Thursday

(I can’t remember which, have lost the knack
for keeping track) I met up with her again

at the coffeeshop in the bookstore, saw her
sitting across from me at our favorite table,

my disbelief suspended by desire for just another word,
for one more moment, hoping she could see me too.

Non-Committal Author

Potato Soup Journal (Online) (10-Word Story) February 2021

“Are these stories fact or fiction?”

“Some are; some aren’t.”

Music Lesson

A Story In 100 Words (entropy2.com) (Online) January 2021

I can’t say for certain which music I’m enjoying more – Susumu Yokota’s Asian ambience on the laptop or the garden’s new water fountain concert.

Mr. Chipmunk, the gaudy flutterby, and the fledgling redwings all clearly prefer the fountain. And why wouldn’t they? What do they know about synthesizers, electronic percussion, or the meditative properties of fluid melody transformation? For them, the fountain’s water, singing its spontaneous aria, is life itself; is the music without which their lives—all lives—would cease to exist.

I reach out and tap the laptop’s mute.

Some creatures—most creatures—know far more than I.

Rejuvenation Maestro

A Story in 100 Words (Online) January 2021

He’d become accustomed to his trifocals and dentures; took his half-dozen morning pills religiously; prayed for just one more upright day, another day to deal with his rapidly advancing age.

Even though he still had his youthful smile and the remnants of his ponytail, most of his hair had gone and what little remained had long since thinned and greyed, then whitened. He usually shunned the morning mirror.

His grandson's youngest daughter (almost half-way through her troubled, rebellious teens) said, "Don't worry, Pop-Pop; I can fix you up real good," and before he knew it they had matching blue hair. 

(A Failed Haiku)

Failed Haiku - A journal of American Senryu

Vol 6 Issue 61 (Online) January 2021

black ink

in dark rooms

disappears

Me Diversity

 The Drabble (Online) December 2020

I look in the mirror, but
I never see the same guy twice.
(Maybe that’s a good thing.)

I know who I used to be,
and who I was before that:
I’m hardly ever them anymore.

I know who I always hope to see.
I keep sending him invitations
but he almost never shows up.

Maybe I need one of those fancy
dressing room mirrors; one that
can reflect my many, many faces

until I can finally settle down,
until I can decide which one of me
is the one that I’ve been looking for.

Under The Rainbow

 A Story In 100 Words (Online) December 2020

For an instant, just before noticing the new bank of threatening clouds conspiring on the darkened horizon, it seemed like everyone knew how to think, knew what to think; everyone knew how to feel.  

No one could take their eyes off the rainbow until it faded —as all rainbows always do— and the first few burning drops of the new and far more furious downpour, promising only flood, destruction, and despair appeared.

By the time the storm reached its new-found fury, everyone had given up seeking shelter. No one had any recollection whatsoever of anything even vaguely resembling a rainbow.

I Used To Be A Stripper

 
100 Lives  (Anthology)
Pure Slush Books  Vol. 20
Print & e-Pub (Novenber 2020)

Three nights a week, midnight
to eight-ish (though I always 
did my best to disappear briefly
on my 4:20 smoke break, and to
vanish altogether long before
the end of my shift arrived).

But at least I always got paid;
always earned the exact same 
paltry pittance no matter how
much or little of myself I left
out there on the floor, no matter
if anyone was watching or not.

Stripping requires acid. I remember
I always showed up on time and
they always had my acid waiting.
I remember that when I was done
—hours and hours after my shift—
the acid just kept on working.