| Susana Hazelden |
Ten Items Or Less Can you narrow it down to That in the event You have to Choose? Or can the cashier Decide to let you through With 11? Are you the type Who holds up the line, Making a project of Putting nickels and dimes into Your little ole lady change purse As the cashier Taps her crimson nails On the counter And the bag boy Pounds a hole into The soda box? Is that you? Me too. November 2007 |
| Copyright 2007 Red Pulp Underground |
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Red Pulp Underground
In the dark of goodnights, smokestacks puff like gigantic, Phallic pipes marking happy productivity Yet soot covers the porous building facades And leaves a film on the faces of the populace. Having lived in this county most of my life I never thought my lungs would fail me Yet my wheezing and my X-ray gave my doctor concern Walking on now, weakened, my gaze evermore forlorn I am not nor will I be the saintly aunt Who never complained of the pain of her stomach cancer. Has the reaper taken on new forms I wonder as my path Coincides with a young miner’s wife? In her thin blue-jeaned legs, Her blocked cross-trainers planted lightly but firmly ahead Taking off a glove to count out change Looking in my direction over a red nose, sad eyes, Like a pretty girl left behind by the train, Waiting for another, taking cover out of the rain, Walking away from the register bell. Hanging onto her netted grocery bags Like she was carrying a valise. She ended up paying with plastic. And me, I have to carry my leftover love, Enjoined to no one like a heavy backpack. Like the one that, at 37, killed Mitch Hedberg, The comedian, who delivered his lines with eyes closed, So intimidated by being in front of an audience. “Here’s to you, Mitch!” November 2007 |