Timbers Shivered

Shivered timber in shale shallows at Shiloh. Surrendering sailors gape guppy-mouthed and lubber like puppies a’lee of Captain Shill, who swills Merlot and summons sacred sea soldiers of old, while scolding on shoulder, parrot Merlin for mimicing Shylock’s fleece codpiece spiel in walkie-talkie cockney jabberwocky even as fleet scuttles.

Emails accidentally received (intended for someone’s name close to mine):

1. updates on live piano music for the wedding
2. follow up to new resident orientation
3. follow up on music for the wedding, looking for a response
4. plane tickets
5. a video about yom kippur
6. advertisements for a radiology job
7. a message from someone who wants to talk to this other Shannon Smith, who’d “misplaced” her email address
8. more radiologist job advertisements
9. a “frightening” Howard Sten clip about how Obama might win the election
10. offer to join classmates.com
11. online photo albums of someone’s new child
12. pictures of someone’s new nephew, someone who doesn’t think the child is cute enough

Monopoly

Just out of the fifth grade, she played Monopoly with her parents- one of the few times they were willing to play this game, her favorite. "There's no guarantee that Monopoly will ever end," her mother whined.

But when it did end, and our girl won, Mother bent down next to her at the dining room table, running a hand up her shin. "You've been shaving your legs, haven't you?"

Mother didn't mean to be cruel, but the girl was humiliated, as if she'd been caught rubbing herself against the corner of her bed. She hid under her bed for the rest of the day, listening to popular radio, loud, songs repeating ever couple of hours.

Her father brought her peanut butter crackers. He said, "It's really no big deal."

Snacktime II

Candy again, yum
Licorice pastels, delight
Distraction habit

Before, ice cream tale
Now, just thinking about food
Too lazy to cook

Sugar high, I type
Crunching crunching licorice
Coated in sugar

Licorice pastels
Easter coloring, surprise
It’s not Halloween

In candy land, home
Beans and Barley provides
On noes! Tummy ache!

Leo's Manifesto Part II (in front of the coffee machine at the White Hen Pantry at Roosevelt Road and Halsted Avenue)

Yeah, in this line of work, you see the ugly things people do.
Leo’s seen people say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, then he hadda bust them for stuffing their pockets. Leo says he’s had people come in with children and leave them in the store. And hookers? Forget it. Too many to count in that neighborhood. But they need money, so Leo says, who is he to judge? Then the time a man comes in with a girl. She looked just like him, so at first Leo didn’t think anything of it. She just kept looking at him while her father paid for their stuff—cough syrup, Vivarin, cigarette papers, potato chips, pops, and candy. The girl kept looking at Leo. She couldn’t have been more than eight or so. To this day, Leo kicks himself for being so slow. Leo says, guess what they say about Polocks is true. Leo says that’s a joke. (Ha, ha, ha.) But he hates the fact that he didn’t get it until they were leaving the store and the little girl starts crying. Silently, but she was crying. Then Leo thought about the flyers in the restroom. He went back to look—it was her and her father. Leo remembers the name—Oscar Rubio. The girl was Lisa Andrade. Leo called the cops, but it was too late. Leo says he remembers their names because he looked at the poster for weeks after. They were gone when he went back out to the front. Leo says he never heard anything about whether they found them. It bothered him for a long time after. Leo says he knows what it’s like as a man to want to see your kid, but Christ, the girl was crying. Didn’t that creep see that?

Leo Takes a Break at the White Hen Pantry at Roosevelt Road and Halsted Avenue

Leo stands behind the counter, loading hot dogs onto the revolving roaster. He made fifty-four
this past January. He’s a proud South Side Chicago Polock. Not that this has anything to
do with what he’s about to tell you. He just likes saying it because it’s true. He works
at the White Hen Pantry at the corner of Roosevelt Road and Halsted Avenue. Roosevelt Road
connects Chicago’s West side to the Loop and the Near South Side. Halsted Avenue brings the
North Side to the South Side and the southern suburbs. Leo has been working here for eight years, and he’s seen some real wackos and freaks. Not just homeless people, like a lot of people assume, but guys with money, family guys. Even cops—real fruitcakes. Sometimes Leo thinks there are more fruitcakes that people who are sane. He’s been held up more times that he can keep track, once by a guy he knew used to be a fireman. Some junkie is always trying to steal stuff. But that’s normal.
There was a couple comes in and bought some condoms. Leo says he should have known something was up ‘cause the lady picked them out. They paid, and Leo went back to the inventory he was recording. He says he lost track of where they went. A homeless guy who Leo lets wash up in the bathroom sometimes comes up to him and says the door is blocked by something. Not locked because the lock is broken. He couldn’t get inside because something was blocking it. Some boxes or something. And there’s laughing coming out of there. Well, turns out, the couple’s in the restroom. The couple with the condoms are in there, getting their rocks off, and the broad turns out to be a guy. Leo has to admit he punched the guy dressed up as a broad first.

when he feels joy

It is exactly that, but guessing.
As he can’t figure, she wouldn’t
understand. As the whiteness
stultifies, she is restored, he stares
and wishes. How he loves to watch
and knows not how. As they say,
he does not notice.