Sarah works lunch in a Subway shop
building sandwiches for construction men
putting up a skyscraper down the street.
...
Under his pillow he keeps
a pistol not to shoot the man
coming through the window
with a bazooka at midnight
...
This megastore is a paradise of food.
It’s open all night, its parking lot lit
like a stadium in Texas on a football
Friday night but now at midnight
...
José and Esmeralda are old.
Their music isn’t salsa anymore.
It's the chant they hear at church
...
Feeding feral cats at dawn
is easier when the cats are calm.
This can happen when the
mix of cats remains the same
...
No more emails with a smiley face,
no more emails, period, or you
and the others are out of my will.
...
Women go through stages when it comes to losing weight. They often begin with diet. When I was young I remember Ry-Krisp, a cracker of sorts, was the last resort for mothers in my old blue-collar neighborhood who were in despair over excess tonnage, a common plight when times were good after World War II and rationing had stopped.
Cream puffs and chocolate éclairs were gold after World War II. But I would know how serious my mother was about losing weight when the Ry-Krisp box appeared in the pantry. I tried Ry-Krisp once in grammar school and I found only buttermilk to be worse. I gagged on both.
...
“The job should pay what the job is worth. You know that, ” Bill told Fred. The two of them were at the same table in a nice restaurant awaiting delivery of prime rib after another hard day at the office. They were munching on appetizers and sipping a new imported beer.
Until recently, Fred had agreed with Bill. Capitalism is the only system that will work in a functioning society. Throughout history other systems had failed miserably.
...
Cozy was his name and women were his game and the pelts of many ladies hung from rafters of his mind. He loved them all for the hour or so he’d spend with them and many ladies never tired of this country boy who could talk beautifully while their husbands were away hunting or fishing.
Cozy never came a-calling while a husband was around although husbands in the rural countryside and town had heard of Cozy's reputation but they never thought of him consorting with their wives. Not their wives. And there were many women thereabouts who would never look or talk to Cozy. But other ladies kept him busy talking which Cozy loved to do before it was time to get down to business.
...