Wednesday, August 13, 2014

poem of the day 08.13.14


don’t go to 9th 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 2nd 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 9th 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 9th 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 9th 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.

                                                           

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