The Fly and the Wild Boys

The fly was lonely,
or suicidal,
or both.

Bad habits
to have in my
too-small apartment.

It had left me
in peace while I watched
The Wild Boys,

a French film where
several maladjusted
punks rape their teacher

who dies naked
on a horse and they are
sent to a mysterious

island full of exotic
fruits and sexual plants
then turn into women

at the end, which
is their new beginning
of killing sailors.

Inspiring a poem,
which the truculent fly
would not let me write.

Circling my eyes and ears
despite my dire threats, it
continued to annoy.

So I killed it
which also killed
the inspiration

for the poem.
I went to sleep
and dreamed of

sweet luscious fruits
and sexual plants
that became women

who came to me
me naked, but sadly left
upon seeing me

surrounded by
a menacing horde
of angry flies.

His toxic masculinity

gives the female bartender
fits as he stalks her with
eyes not moving from
her endowed bust as
he calls her
“baby doll” and “honey”
in a slow, slurred
near obscene way.

All the while she’s thinking
sometimes the biggest
tippers are the biggest
assholes, so you wear
a smile tighter than
a push up bra
the wrong size
and ignore half
or more of what
they say

as if their
verbal hieroglyphics
are for someone else
to understand.

But he crosses too
many lines and his
increasingly crude
overtures form a yellow
line used for crime
victims. Closing in
on her till she says
“That’s it! Pay your tab
and leave not even
a fingerprint,”
which he does, saying
BITCH just loud enough
for her to hear.

It’s right then that she wishes
she was an archer
with arrows
in her quiver

waiting to be summoned.
Instead, she points
her finger at him
shooting 3
imaginary bullets
as he leaves.

She imagines
him outside sprawled
on sidewalk bleeding
copious blood until
the ambulance
arrives to save
him to insult again
at a bar not hers
and that’s a small victory
she’ll take. Her eyes on
the clock that reads
3 hours left of her shift
as she smiles at
the next customer.

Invisible Doubt

As curfew closes
the bar’s doors
we argue semantics
over the weight
of heavy metal’s relevance.

She’s too young for me,
with long hair, red
as a police siren in the ghetto.
But her hands on me
make it clear she wants to lose…
even with eyes
filled with invisible doubt.

Dulled by copious drinks,
we make our mute sounds
half between catcalls
and words for hecklers,
taken from a comedian’s
love-starved mouth.
Bruised by punchlines,
we joke our way to
her dirty sheets,

a bed scarred with
failure. Where I
write my name, too,
between each
embrace ’til the
final one.

In our ears
the echoes of
hunger, need,
and fervor
will suffice

until it doesn’t
and we prowl for others,
anything lasting no longer
than fleeting regrets.