Issue Two - Will Nixon
Afternoon Boomers
Lightning walks the horizon on crooked stilts.
Rain grabs my window with runny fingers.
Back up your computers! shouts the receptionist.
I e-mail the afternoon boomers: Throw out the clowns!
Juggle those boulders as if you've never dropped one before
Whoring In My Mother’s Volvo
“They call this porno?” spat Squazzi,
ushering us past knees at the Sono Cinema,
while the Stewardess groaned discretely low
in the captain's seat with her spike heels raised
for us to see, spearing out from the screen in 3-D,
a cheesy effect that made this art house crowd chuckle.
We dropped our cardboard glasses in the collection box,
walked out to the parking lot known for stolen radios
& last month's mugging. Should I be driving
my mother's Volvo in South Norwalk?
She thought I was at the Woody Allen in Darien.
But Squazzi directed me to a street of ranch houses
with buzzcut hedges & double garages,
driveways jammed with Country Squire wagons,
tricycles & trailers holding boats.
Unlike the ghetto I expected
South Norwalk had lawn flamingos & Bambis.
“Slow down,” Squazzi snapped,
“hookers can't walk this fast.”
Riding my brakes, I wondered if these suburban
ranches could honestly be whorehouses,
but, sure enough, I lured a woman out
from a shadow van. At first tippy on spike heels,
then stocky & secure, she sashayed in leather hot pants
flashing buttery reflections under the yellow street lamps.
She planted her elbows on my window
& nodded with cornrows loaded so heavy with beads
she swished like a curtain.
“What's with that dirt smell?” she said.
“You farmers? Some shit like that?”
Her lips glistened with Vaseline.
I explained my mother's absent-mindedness,
her nursery plants forgotten in the rear.
Plus a bag of mulch. Maybe two.
“Tomatoes?” she asked. “I'm growing me some peppers,
you don't even want to know....”
“How much for a blow?” Squazzi said.
“We're talking here, Mr. Impatient,” she glared.
“Actually, they're geraniums,” I answered.
“My mother doesn't have much luck with vegetables.
We think we've got the smartest woodchuck
in the neighborhood.”
“That right?” she said.
“How much for round-the-world?” Squazzi said.
“Thirty bucks, but a boy like you?
I'm not sure you could go that far.”
“What's an around-the-world?” I asked.
“Honey,” she smiled, then stopped.
“You tell your mother, woodchucks are nothing to fret
if you've got the right gun. It's the slugs
can steal your garden right under your nose.”
“Save it,” said Squazzi. “Let's go to Augie's
& catch the Yankees late night at Seattle.”
Registered Pagan
I repealed clocks & voted for campfire sparks
flocking to replenish the stars.
I wrote my Representative oak,
asking if his second century was as good as the first.
Yes, he replied, but don't let squirrels
annoy you beyond reason.
I studied the constitution of streams,
so gentle on sunny afternoons
water striders danced on calm eddies,
yet so furious after storms
fallen trunks rode over rapids
with roots raised like warrior paddles.
I nominated chickadees
for the Happiness Committee.
I paid the Authorities a compliment:
“You're 98 percent chimpanzee genes.”
Perhaps they were insulted.
They haven't climbed into the trees.
Tackling Dummy
Flat on my back,
smelling grass, yard line lime,
cringing at coach's whistle,
yet sitting up & reaching down my ankle,
crooked as a tent stake.
The hospital has a white triangular block
for supporting a loose foot like mine.
Sleepy on the operating table,
I reassure my mother
she can faint if she likes.
She just told the nurse she might.
At school all the girls love to sign casts.
The Fastest Draw in Truckee, California
Nobody rode horses, yet the wooden sidewalks
had strap railings as if for Westerns.
Antique shops sold authentic gold pans
in windows draped with spurs & burlap sacks.
The night I ate magic mushrooms
& marched the sidewalk planks,
digging my heels with the authority of ax blows
like Clint Eastwood, hero of heroes,
I beat the traffic light to the draw every time,
but couldn't stop snickering
at pretending to defend justice,
blowing bullet smoke off my finger.