poem of the day 08.13.14

don’t go to 9^th avenue

the sound of her shrill voice

pulls me right out of the frank o’hara

she says into her phone

why didn’t you pick up by the 2^nd ring?

and i find myself looking at the cellulite

on the back of her high-kicking thigh

it’s not a judgment

it’s simply where my focus lands

instead of on the frank o’hara

oh, don’t give me that shit, she says

you’re supposed to be heading to 9^th avenue

to pick up your son

because he’s been waiting for you all day, she says

i look away from the cellulite

to the boy standing on the orange plastic seat

watching dull brooklyn go by on the d train

he’s smiling

either clueless or like a buddhist

he just accept his life for what it is

if he’s smart he misses no one

that’s fuckin’ bullshit, she says

i mean what exactly are you doing?

it ain’t like you have a job

and now others are watching the evening show

i look into her face

haggard, too much eye make-up

i have no room to talk

today two separate people told me that i look like hell

and they were most likely right

she squints at me

i figure if i don’t turn away

i’m next on her hit list

but she’s like watching a car wreck

yeah, she says into her phone

well, you should’ve thought of that

when you knocked me up

and don’t take that tone with me, asshole, she shouts

her boy stops looking out the window

she turns to him and gives him an eskimo kiss

in twenty years he’ll be on the other end

of a phone call like this

then she says,

if you’re going to be like that

we can just go to my mother’s

we all wait on bated breath for his answer

what do you mean good? she shouts

look, i don’t give a shit

you just get your ass down to 9^th avenue right now

or i swear, anton, i fucking swear, she says

she hangs up the phone

before she can complete the threat

she grabs her standing kid and puts him in her lap

smothers him with kisses and future psychosis

while somewhere out there

anton is sweating bullets over 9^th avenue

or he’s sitting back and cracking open another beer

happy with the buzz of silence

before the phone will ring again

and he has to suffer the cadence

of her wonderful, motherly voice.