the sign on the door says
Believe in Jesus
Christ Be Saved.
By God,
I knock and score
enough for me
and my friend Ben,
the suicidal Chihuahua,
to get tranquilized
alley-wise over by the Walgreens.
between dumpsters
lie wicked dreams:
deposit me in the passenger seat
of didion’s bright stingray
screaming down
early sunday morning streets,
one of flannery’s peacocks
winging the wheel.
intimacy gone stale
as an old box of cracker jacks
in an Aztec time machine.
piss on that smell, Ben.
George Carlin said
we should die first
spend our last nine months on earth
in a womb and
finish as an
orgasm.
I guess that’ll be the safe word,
I says,
to a rat wearing a leather mask
who
is rumored to infect
her sexual partners
with a nasty streak of optimism

Image credit:Bruno Martins

Anthony Hughes is no Luddite, but he misses the zip and spin of rotary dial phones. Dialing someone with a lot of O's in their number could be a pain in the ass though, if you were in a hurry. He lives in Deep South Texas, enjoys a strong back, crawling, and talking about himself in the third person.