July 27 – August 2, 2015: Adel Souto and Woodrow Hightower

North Cut

Retract claws.
Purr right alongside.
Build a barrier of sense,
and always land on all fours.
Pet me until it’s time to feed.
After a run,
let’s hide in the grass,
and roll on our backs to enjoy the sun on our faces.
Meow, indeed.

Issues

With a boatload of bravado
I Looked up from my laptop and announced:
“Hey everybody,
Goats have gotten loose
In the cabbage patch!”
(I should have been an actor)
My doomsday warning a siren song
Loud enough to be heard
Across state lines

Both customers and hired help
Sprinted past the exit sign
Climbing into rusted F-150’s
And soon-to-be-totaled CRV’s,
Racing away
Leaving Blue Lulu’s Ice Cream Shop empty
Accept for me

Feeling as much guilt
As a Cro-Magnon man could muster
On a blistering-hot summer day
I slipped behind the cash register
And stainless steel frigidarium
To get a closer look at the 42 flavors
Unguarded,
There for the taking

Too many choices:
Grease-Pit Peach, Revolver Rocha
Sunset Strip Sorbet, the list went on
I grabbed a white plastic spoon
Digging in before the novelty wore off

Within seconds I was surprised
By the sound of a flushing toilet
And a door opening in the back
Larry “In-one-ear-and-out-the-other” Morris
Was walking towards me,
Puzzlement plastering his face
“Where’d everybody go?”
“Didn’t you hear the sirens?” I said
“There’s a motor home full of jihadists
Headed this way”

Larry sat down to the two scoops
Of Cherry Compulsion he’d left behind
Before forgetting to wash his hands
“Didn’t you hear me man?”…
“Jihadists!”

He and I have known each other
Since the pubescent gang days
Acquaintances not friends
He ran with the Saber-Toothed Sultans
I was in the Department of the Damned
Polar opposites
He never sweated the whys and wherefores
I sweated everything

“Don’t you drive a red Focus
With a Social D bumper sticker on the back?”
He was looking out the window as he asked
I nodded my head
“I just saw someone in a jumpsuit
And a hockey mask
Get behind the wheel”
“No way!” I screamed running outside,
Rattled but relieved when I found the Ford
Still sitting next to a light pole
Where left earlier
Doors locked, no one inside

I have this recurring dream
In it I have wings and I’m trying to fly
But straining with maximum effort
I can’t get above the tree line
Articulation sticks in the throat
The muddy language of loose ends
I wake up shaking
I believe somehow Larry knows this

Hustling back
For some polyamorous pecan swirl
I saw a sharpie note
Scrawled on a napkin
Taped to Lulu’s front door
Predictably, Larry was gone
As was my new laptop

At that moment
The rube posse, led by Lulu herself
Came roaring back,
Re-positioning cars and trucks
In front of her business
The anger on their faces
Proof they had discovered
The cabbage untouched

“Damn you Morris”
I was trapped

Desperate,
Pointing towards sky,
I turned and faced the locals
“Hey look everyone,”
Halley’s Comet!”
Vengeful eyes stayed on me

It was then I noticed Larry’s scribble:
“Dear Stupid,
An unreliable narrator
Can never be trusted”