Stuck in the Street at Minus Ten
by alex stolis


Davis had been married fourteen years earlier,
a life now used to inspire memories;
daily walks down Bracken Street shuffling
the air between his fingers, a wave
to the Thompson boys, Jeremy and Tom,
their infinite youth borrowing time.
They drink cherry cola, man the stoop
and fight over the Cicero girl.
Her tight sweater fierce
against the chill.
They wish for a touch or a peck,
a sideways look
or a simple brush of the arm.
Davis lights a Camel, heads west,
thinking himself devilish,
debonair, somehow beyond reproach,
somehow above the middle of the class
that he was born into. He pulls
another drag, watches
the Thompson boys puff
and pose and preen,
he remembers the smell of his mother's goulash,
the wet taste of soil from his father's grave.






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