Poem
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Gambling Bone Dice for a Logger/Curtis Taylor
/Set of five tin gambling dice in a 1917 snuff box, silver insert engraved with Biblical phrase: ‘Perhaps in the world’s destruction it would be possible at last to see how it was made’. Edition of three. Inquire for price and availability.
After the treatment center went broke and became a tavern
/After the treatment center went broke and became a tavern
He lived out back (sometimes) in a shelter handmade of string, a tarp and some plastic safety fencing. He showed me a photograph of himself from the early days of the tavern. So he never left. He transitioned in a smooth overlap from someone in recovery to a drunk and an addict who lived full-time behind a tavern. That’s how it went after the treatment center went broke, and the next occupant of the building was a tavern. As if that should ever be allowed. In the picture he showed me he was shirtless, very fit and good looking (if a bit thin). In the picture his hair was long and dirty (real Jesus hair) and he was dancing alone like one does late at night near closing time in an almost empty bar. The picture was taken with a flash, the camera close to him. He glowed against a background of amber-lighted gloom. Even though his eyes were closed and he smiled his face was a smock of hopelessness. One wondered where his young wife and child were that night, like where were they the moment that photograph was taken.
The wounded fabulist
/‘I wasn’t looking as the light went out’ is what he said pulled up to the curb staring and unslept telling us how just by the footsteps on the tiles echoed under the arcade he knew it was her walking out: ‘I might be blind but I could hear like it was the only sound in the world’
A horse on ice
/A: You are looking like a horse on ice my friend.
B: What are you talking about?
A: Picture it.
C: Yeah, picture it my friend.
B: Picture a horse on ice?
C: Yeah. The horse is on ice. He is iced. In the cooler.
A: (to C) No.
C: What?
A: The horse is walking on ice. It can’t catch its balance, its legs are shooting out.
C: Yeah
A: Our friend here (points to B) is a horse on ice.
B: I told Les what my situation was.
C: Your situation? You are the situation.
B: (to A) Did you talk to Les?
C: (to B) You better believe you have a situation.
A: (to B) When did you talk to Les?
B: I cleared this up with Les.
C: You are a horse on ice.
A: We just came from Les and he is teed off. At us. You know why?
C: (to B) Because of you.
B: Because of me?
A: Because of you. Because of the car.
C: (to B) Where’s the car?
A: (to B) Les wants the car.
B: I have a lease.
A: On the car? It’s Les’s car. Les doesn’t lease his own car.
B: Let me call him.
C: He doesn’t want to talk to you.
B: (to C) Says who?
C: Les told me that.
A: We just came from Les.
C: And he told us: “Go get my car”.
B: I’m leasing that car from Les.
C: Not anymore.
A: (to B) Where is it?
B: Let me call Lester.
C: You don’t listen. Lester doesn’t want to talk to you.
B: Okay. Wait.
C: Wait?
A: (to C) Now you get what I mean, he’s looking like a horse on ice?
C: I see it now. At first I was picturing, like, a horse on ice, like in a meat case, like steaks and loin cuts of horse meat.
A: Horse meat?
C: Yeah, like in a meat case at the grocery store.
A: Do people eat horse meat?
C: They used to. My grandmother did.
A: What?
C: Yeah. During the dustbowl. They made hamburger once out of a horse. Hey (gestures to B). Horse on ice.
A: Yeah. (to B) Where’s the car? Where’s Les’ car?
B: I don’t have it.
