I Used to Know A Guy Named Steve

I Used To Know a Guy Named Steve

Steve was a black man of thirty-five. He was greasy and had dandruff. He dressed very badly in black denim and cheap stretchy pullover shirts with three buttons center, top. He wore too much Drakar Noir in an attempt to cover up the smell of sweat that clung to him always in the south Texas heat. He’d had a bad acne problem in high school. The scars were quite deep. His thick glasses were always smudged with fingerprints because he was always pulling and pushing on them. It was a nervous habit. And when Steve talked about his demanding life in the music industry and how he’d just come from a rehearsal, it was all just bull shit. He was really quite convincing with the musical knowledge, but someone had seen him slinging burgers at Maggie’s Restaurant on Blanco. Said he works the day shift six days a week. Can’t say I was that surprised.  I never brought it up. Steve had enough strikes against him for one guy. I decided to let him live his dream with me since no one else was buying it.

The Day We Pulled the House Down

The Day We Pulled the House Down

Dad had purchased the lot next door

and the weak old house that sat on it.

Old neighbor Annie had lived there

and left her pieces of memory behind.

My sister and I combed the forgotten place and

found what we thought were treasures.

Two small green bottles with aged labels.

One for me and one for her.

Keepsakes of a day we’d remember

with vivid detail like a video loop

that repeats for an eternity in the mind.

We were all there, the family.

Dad, mom, all three siblings.

Dad and brother securing the thick rope

around the old house and then to the truck.

The truck’s grunting and pulling

until the house seemed to go up

in a puff of smoke, but it was dirt

and the house was falling,

folding in on itself like an unnatural bloom.

Five of us watched it die a loud

long unsettling human-like death.

It left us each shaken in some odd way.

We couldn’t know then that it was a metaphor

for what can happen to regular people

like us in the huge crap game called life.

We became a house of abandoned

rooms, cobwebs hanging in corners.

Someone took all the trinkets we left there.

Nothing was costly; just precious to us.

It didn’t even feel like home anymore.

Then the house that was home was pulled

by the thick rope that surrounded it.

The foundation crumbled in surrender

and the walls gave up the good fight.

It fell with the cry of a valiant, but tired soldier.

We all shed tears as we watched it happen.

Now, home is not a place we can go

by taking a particular road or certain turn.

But the house of the mind has countless rooms

full of lovely things to smile about.

In the Dressing Room: A Prose Poem

In the Dressing Room: A Prose Poem

“We have a pay phone back by the bathroom stalls, but they got no doors cause someone got caught smoking weed or doing coke or something else equally bad in there but the girls in this place don’t really care cause there’s nothing to hide around here other than your money and you better keep that in a place no one can get at or you’ll be leaving here with tears running down your young and disillusioned face broke as when you came in so you’ll be smart not to trust any of the girls and don’t loan them your shit or you won’t get it back--here you go! here’s a locker you can use just don’t leave nothin’ important in it if you don’t have a lock cause you can leave your things and your money with the house mom who’s right over there on the other side of the dressing room. Up those stairs and through that curtain there is the main stage and you’re up first so you better get dressed--My name’s Exotica. Good luck out there, girl.”

In That Old Photograph

In That Old Photograph

It looks as if my skin’s too tight

like my soul hasn’t had the chance

to work its way to the surface

of my then smooth mask of face.

I don’t know who she was--

the way she tied her scarf like that.

Made up far too much for a young

girl so unformed and unsure

of everything around her.

Life will loosen

the skin of the soul

pulling down what once

held with certainty

to the bones of youth

exposing something truer.

A falling into place--

settling like a house

well lived-in.