Poetry

                                 Tiny one bedroom flat
                                 space heater-warmed 
                                 with a phone booth closet 
                                 that could store meat - 
                                 a kitchen with southern 
                                 view of tattooed 
                                 John and Rose’s porch
                                 from where he’d flick
                                 his Camel butts
                                 into the seven clumps
                                 of withered grass
                                 trying to be a yard
                                 sans noticeable success.

                                 Residents from the
                                 local sheltered home
                                 with a labored walk
                                 shuffling to work
                                 carrying a Thorazine high -
                                 off to bag incense
                                 eight hours a day 
                                 without complaint -
                                 but needing to stop
                                 at the corner store  
                                 for their morning 
                                 sugar fix of candy and coke
                                 just to feel alive.

                                 Seven years of fun and games 
                                 with a revolving door 
                                 of friends and lovers –
                                 teaching reluctant
                                 urban teens by day
                                 who taught me
                                 all about the blues 
                                 I sought out each night
                                 up and down
                                 Lincoln Avenue bars
                                 where legends
                                 like Dixon, Wolf, and Waters 
                                 laid down the timeless licks 
                                 that everyone listening knew –
                                 then drank too much
                                 as the nights wore on -
                                 just like the rest of us.

Far flung waves
faintly calling from
my garden's end.

Each cycle of the moon
they grow braver
in their greeting.

Fences fall.

The
crashing
of
the
waves
rises.

Awoken
from sleep
as it wraps on my window.

Bricks falling
into its foaming mouth.

The girl got him a bracelet
for his right arm, already holding 
twelve bangles of silver and of gold.  

He never wore it, said, instead,
each circle had to come to him 
by chance:

the Middle Eastern deli counter man
who’d given him the middle one,
the New York psychic—grabbed his arm

and told him to beware.
They couldn’t just be gifts, what with
their implications of enclosure, continuation.

And so, the brass loop was stashed in his backpack,
the same one he would drop first on her floor.
 She never saw what else might be inside

but wondered if, like the circle, 
known by many as a magical space,
it held nothing in its center 
but air.

A pile of dirt dressed up in a mountain’s clothing 
A working man’s pile of rocks
but a ball and chain for the drowning man
a bucket of cement spilled across flowering dirt
but the girl is known for crying wolf 
so a mountain has become a molehill

while the dogs come at the blow of whistle
tearing and biting at scraps of meat 
slavering mouths that consume
the yellow pages of journalist notes
as a foremen brings the hammer down 

the coal burns hotter than any other fuel 
but oil is expensive these days 
worth more than the average dollar 
now that’s a molehill mountain 
dressed in expensive leather for the fire 

a working man’s pile of coal
the color of lungs is worth 
the switch from red to black
more money for the non-worker 
whose check balances with zeros lined in gold
this mountains nothing more than a molehill
pick yourself up by your bootstraps
 
 

I’m calling for fries
over the counter full
of fried food and grease
while the chefs ignore me.
Someone taps me twice
on the shoulder as tears salt 
my lips. “What?” I snap, 
searching for a coworker’s face. 
The old woman from my table 
takes a step back. “Excuse me?” 
she says, her wrinkles contorting. 
“I’m so sorry, ma’am, I thought 
you were my coworker” I try
to explain. “The women’s restroom
is out of toilet paper.” She walks 
off to clear her plate. I let one more
drop roll down my cheek as I say 
goodbye to any chance at a tip
and turn back to face the head chef. 
“How hard is it to give me some damn
fries?” I continue yelling. When I clock 
out that night I write in my diary. 
I can’t remember one detail of my night 
that doesn’t erase me.

The ticket stabber is over-
flowing on hour ten of my shift. 
“¡Vamos pendeja, vamos!” Miguel
yells over the counter. I flip off 
the food heater and stick three
ice cubes down my bra, then stack 
table 34’s plates on my left arm. 
“Lex, I need a follow” she runs 
over and grabs the last basket of 
chili cheese tots. An hour later, 
the counter is empty and wiped
clean of grease. I restock sauces in
the walk-in and sit down for the first
time today. I clock out at 10:45, say 
my rounds of “Goodnight” to the last 
standing servers. Pepper spray clutch
in hand, I fumble for my keys in the dim 
parking lot. The silence in the passenger
seat is my favorite part of a double-day.
I pull into the gravel driveway, frowning
at the orange-lit room next to mine. 
I knock twice on the purple door so 
my baby sister knows it’s just me.
“Can you read me a bedtime story?”