Tuesday, July 15, 2014

poem of the day 07.15.14


the pittsburgh kid

his face is a sewer line
i mean i hate this kid

it seems like every time i go
to the car rental place he’s there

with his dumb smile
and his chipper, go-getter attitude

he’s the american morning made manifest
he’s no cure for a hangover

and he always wants to know where i’m going

i tell him pittsburgh
and his face lights up

pittsburgh, he says
i’m from pittsburgh too

and then there’s this story about how
he’s not really from pittsburgh
but from thirty miles outside of pittsburgh

then we have to have the requisite talk
about how much he misses home

the kid has no facial recognition
that or there’s so many ex-pittsburghers renting cars
that he can’t tell one of us from the other

we’re like members of a fucking cult
me and the pittsburgh kid

two neighborhood boys
done gone and moved to the big city

black and gold bumpkins
stumbling the wilds of brooklyn

i’m going home this weekend too, he says
yeah, gonna kick it in the ‘burgh for a while

good…he’ll be someone else to avoid
while trapped between those three rivers

he’s someone else to avoid here
on another hot and sweltering saturday morning

with his sewer line face
and his ginger buzzcut

his eyes twinkling the corporate creed
asking me

so how do you think them steelers
are going to do this season?

                                               

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