YOUR PROM DATE
Everyone’s a winner.
How I hate that.
Everything is rotten in the world.
Now that makes sense.
This rented suit doesn’t fit
and the new shoes are torture
on my feet.
I’m a bundle of guilt
from previous poor decisions.
Did I mention how sweaty my palms are?
I fear one wrong word from me
and the entire evening is undone.
I do come bearing flowers.
And I drove here in my dad’s car.
Luckily, I didn’t hit anything.
Besides, I’m sure that four years from now
I’ll look back at this moment
and laugh my stupid head off.
People will ask, “Are you okay?”
Well, Samantha, what do you think.
Am I?
THE MICE
I don’t see the mice
in the leafage under the backyard trees.
Many generations of the creatures have lived there
but they have learned the art of the invisible,
know my habits, react to the absence of them.
With our difference in customs, our amenable schedules,
we do not cross paths.
They’re in a different time-zone
under the nose of my clock.
We have that special rapport, the mutual understanding,
of those who have nothing to do with one another.
It’s worlds within worlds,
just like neighborhoods within cities,
and cities within states, and so on, and so on.
Someone says I should get a cat.
But why give the country ideas?
WHAT’S WRONG EXACTLY
The whispering
of the doctors
nurses
and finally the
caregivers
grows louder
and louder
day by day
until ultimately
it’s one great
pulverizing sound
that can be heard
throughout the hospital
the long term care facility,
even by the corpse
in the funeral home.
If you ask the body,
he will tell you.
“The news is not good.”
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, River And South and The Alembic. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Paterson Literary Review, White Wall Review and Flights.
