Roanoke, Virginia, 1992
it
was so warm
you
could almost go shirtless
even
at midnight
on
the mini golf course
next
to our hotel
my
grandfather with his arm
around
my shoulder
sweating
through his windbreaker
he’d
worn all the way from canada
looking
out at the night sky
having
perhaps his last clear vision
of
an empty parking lot
before
they switched off the lights
everything
blurred after that
on
prosthetic limbs
the
little things
you
can’t ever get back
when
you’re no longer able
to
run away
from the past.
Trailer Park Song, 1996
for
amber
a young girl making men out of boys
& boys out of old men
for 50 bucks a pop
hoping for a few more minutes
of puppy love
in an abandoned trailer
straddling the past
on a shag carpet
with cigarette burns
up & down
her arms.
Poem for My Mother
two
fathers
neither
of them any good
one
mother dead
with
four small children
at
an age when most millennials
are
still using youth
as
an excuse
for
everything
left
unsaid
&
the other held back
from
a wider world
that
would’ve loved her
with
a cigarette burning
going
no further
than
the front yard.
A Funeral in Buffalo
for nathael stolte
the
first time we met
we
gorged ourselves
on
$5 Chinese food
down
the street
from
the bus station
&
i waited in a parked car
while
you went to a funeral
for
an old high school friend
from
your squatter days
who
had overdosed
on
sickness
&
later that night
a
dark haired girl
held
your hand
sitting
in some mobbed up dive
with
shitty chicken fingers
where
for a few moments
you
seemed forever young.
Matthew Haines & the House Special
one
jug of cheap red wine
somehow
improves your driving
a
young girl twists her hair with her finger
as
she attempts to take our order
sliding
into the booth to talk to you
&
losing her job
by
the time the local diner
closes
for the night
maybe
she needed her tips
to
help her mother
keep
the lights on
maybe
she has a younger brother
or
sister to feed
either
way her high school sweater
&
the glitter on her fingernails seems fresh
at
an age where everything
feels
uncertain
you
reach for her phone
inserting
your number
&
your intentions
are
clear.
John Dorsey lived for several years in Toledo, Ohio. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Teaching the Dead to Sing: The Outlaw's Prayer (Rose of Sharon Press, 2006), Sodomy is a City in New Jersey (American Mettle Books, 2010), Tombstone Factory, (Epic Rites Press, 2013), Appalachian Frankenstein (GTK Press, 2015) Being the Fire (Tangerine Press, 2016) and Shoot the Messenger (Red Flag Poetry, 2017),Your Daughter's Country (Blue Horse Press, 2019), Which Way to the River: Selected Poems 2016-2020 (OAC Books, 2020), and Afterlife Karaoke (Crisis Chronicles, 2021). His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and the Stanley Hanks Memorial Poetry Prize. He was the winner of the 2019 Terri Award given out at the Poetry Rendezvous. He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.
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