by Robin Ray
Broken thoughts, spiraled conflicts,
marriages sealed by shotgun flares,
stiletto banjoes. These shoulders
are trampolines. Strike and be stricken,
the tallyman says. [The future might
be brighter than I thought after all.]
Celeste, I can’t find my slippers
anymore, and there’s a boy outside,
said he remembers you from a chalet
in Aspen. Didn’t tip him for the cocaine.
Maybe he’s an apparition and I’m just
scared. If you stop massaging my heart
in your hands I’ll tell you why
pomegranates taste like bricks to me.
Why did you buy a bed with bulletproof
posts and mosquito netting that repels
nothing? Some jokes I don’t understand,
I guess. [I tell Roxanne the red light is a
scam but does she believe me?]
Remember the sugar mama you thought
would pay your hospital bills and
college tuition? She checked out this
morning. No, it wasn’t over-responsibility,
just an aching in her fragile heart.
Robin Ray is the author of Wetland and Other Stories (All Things That Matter Press, 2013), Obey the Darkness: Horror Stories, the novels Murder in Rock & Roll Heaven and Commoner the Vagabond, and one book of non-fiction, You Can’t Sleep Here: A Clown’s Guide to Surviving Homelessness. His works have appeared, or are appearing, in Red Fez, Jerry Jazz Musician, Underwood Press, Scarlet Leaf Review, Neologism Poetry Journal, Spark, Aphelion, Bewildering Stories, Picaroon Poetry, The Bangalore Review, The Magnolia Review, Vita Brevis, and elsewhere.
Find Robin online at https://seattlewordsmith.wordpress.com/ or on Facebook as Robin Ray Lum Cheong.
(And also check out Robin’s poem Ananda. – Elephants Never)