THE MAN WHO DIDN’T MAKE IT HOME FROM THE BAR
On the riverbank,
lies your half-life,
a drunken curve,
a dead-breathing breast.
Waltzing home
on tiptoes of booze,
you land like a corpse
by the gurgling stream.
Come morning,
the search party sets out,
your wife, your kids,
find you with your vomit
in a gray pool
around your mouth.
The question is
who loves you?
Some still do.
Some stop that very moment.
FIGHT OVER A GIRL
Both without fathers, both poor,
like brothers except we were punching each other.
But isn’t that what some brothers do?
I scratched him up a little.
He bloodied my nose, bruised a cheek.
Then I shoved him against a wall.
And he thumped me back.
All that touching, all that rage,
it could have felt intimate
but didn’t.
Both of us keen on a cheerleader.
What do you make of that kind of love?
Laughter mostly.
I hit him in the eye accidentally.
He begged me to stop. And so I stopped.
RAINING IN THE INNER CITY
Another drive-by,
another homeless guy
fished out of the river,
three in the morning,
the inner city’s black eye,
my stream of consciousness
has been dammed up,
it’s raining waterfalls,
the gutters are ocean deep,
the clubs are closed,
the last bass solo
is played in a backstage
dressing room,
nothing’s new
but everything is curious
in its way,
late February,
so many rabbit holes
under an awning
drum my fingers
on a store window,
can’t find the melody,
long for a beer,
the night has me on call
if a line of poetry is needed,
like a lit candle
in a blowing wind,
or a eulogy
to the stranger
whose body has not been
discovered yet.
LEAVING TOWN
She’s wearing this green skirt
and blue and white sweater,
standing outside a convenience store
that also doubles now and then
as a bus stop.
A battered suitcase stands to attention
on either side of her.
She keeps looking east,
the direction her transport
should be coming from.
It’s early November
and the wind is blowing in from
the cornfields, cold and bitter.
But there comes a time
where staying makes no sense
and leaving, even without
any kind of plan, is the only option.
Maybe she knows someone
where she’s going.
Maybe she has prospects.
Or could be a destination
caught her eye
for no other reason than
she likes the name.
At last, she sees the bus
half a mile in the distance
and headed her way.
She grabs the handles of her cases.
Her grip is tighter
than it has ever been.
THIRD FUNERAL THIS YEAR
I’m at a funeral of someone I barely know.
He’s a third cousin of my wife or something.
She hardly knows him either.
The death of strangers…it’s a family thing.
We sit in the rear of the church,
far away from the teary ones
who actually knew the guy.
We’re sad for them. It’s the best we can do.
Then it’s to the cemetery.
We’re so far back of the hearse,
it’s like we’re at the head
of someone else’s procession.
We pray at the gravesite,
pray that no one asks who we are.
Then it’s back to the house for
catered devils eggs and chicken salad sandwiches.
Even my wife isn’t sure if it’s
the right house or not.
But there’s one of her aunts.
“He was only fifty-five,” she says.
Or at least, that’s what her third cousin
told her nephew-in-law.
An hour later, we leave,
thinking to ourselves, someone died
and we’re just moderately upset.
Ah death, if only you would keep your distance thus.
Like a third cousin or something.
And on my wife’s side.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Midnight Mind, Trampoline and Flights. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Levitate, White Wall Review and Willow Review.