a Michigan poem
younger than me &
a stranger but
since she was a
customer I felt
entitled to tease
her about the
U of M ball cap
on the top of her
narrow &
forgettable face.
hey, she said
as I handed her
the change & keys,
my seven year
old daughter gave
me this hat for
mother’s day so
I gotta wear it
even though it
doesn’t match the
rest of my outfit
which was a velour
jogging suit, both
the jacket and pants
a deep wine red
but you know, she
said while turning
off her cell phone
as it buzzed from
the bowels of her
purse, I don’t
want her to
go to that school
when she grows up.
I want her to shave her legs,
I want her to be straight
and a Republican
like me so I hope
she goes to State
or maybe Central
and with that she walked away
and
I found myself
staring at her
flat and wine red ass,
at her hips so very
straight &
narrow.
----------------
in the ignored garden
I am
not worth
writing about
as I bend
over, pull
only the
Weeds
that grow
in the
flower beds,
my shorts
sagging, my
ass
cracking as
God
and the
Neighbors
turn away.
-----
David LaBounty's recent work has appeared in Pank, the New Plains Review, Night Train and other journals. His third novel, Affluenza will be published in 2009. Affluenza is a novel about patricide, debt, vanity, pyromania and consumerism told through the financial rise and fall of an insurance executive who lives beyond his means. David LaBounty lives in Michigan.
younger than me &
a stranger but
since she was a
customer I felt
entitled to tease
her about the
U of M ball cap
on the top of her
narrow &
forgettable face.
hey, she said
as I handed her
the change & keys,
my seven year
old daughter gave
me this hat for
mother’s day so
I gotta wear it
even though it
doesn’t match the
rest of my outfit
which was a velour
jogging suit, both
the jacket and pants
a deep wine red
but you know, she
said while turning
off her cell phone
as it buzzed from
the bowels of her
purse, I don’t
want her to
go to that school
when she grows up.
I want her to shave her legs,
I want her to be straight
and a Republican
like me so I hope
she goes to State
or maybe Central
and with that she walked away
and
I found myself
staring at her
flat and wine red ass,
at her hips so very
straight &
narrow.
----------------
in the ignored garden
I am
not worth
writing about
as I bend
over, pull
only the
Weeds
that grow
in the
flower beds,
my shorts
sagging, my
ass
cracking as
God
and the
Neighbors
turn away.
-----
David LaBounty's recent work has appeared in Pank, the New Plains Review, Night Train and other journals. His third novel, Affluenza will be published in 2009. Affluenza is a novel about patricide, debt, vanity, pyromania and consumerism told through the financial rise and fall of an insurance executive who lives beyond his means. David LaBounty lives in Michigan.
