Fluid Riot



A young woman with long
dark               
curly hair walks                
out of a building in an old
suburban
strip mall        
across the parking lot
smiling at Pahn
in a town resembling his hometown

           They go
into a small store that still
glows with fifties puce          and
she takes him
into the back to meet her father
who is an old dark-skinned
man with short    grey
beard and hair
overalls          and
the shape
of Alfred Hitchcock    speaking
in that patient
friendly  
Louisiana drawl…

…Pahn is with Lisa Gay Hamilton
in a happier role
walking the sidewalk
up Santa Cruz avenue
to the grocery store
where the dark haired woman’s father
is having a dispute…

…a large group of fluid
generic rioters rush the old store        throwing
a green barrel through the door       and Pahn
fears for the dark-haired woman’s family         looking
 for a phone booth to call the police—        
he sees one booth by the store
but it is too close to the riot
so he walks back up the avenue to find
 another            with townspeople rushing past him    and 
sees the police are already coming      and
turning around        the crowd has already thinned
so         he walks back down
to the store again
to find the crowd
has gone…

…inside the store
with the dark-haired woman    he walks
                                                       into the back
              and down the stairs
where her plump                                                                         
 and friendly mother
is calmly
 sweeping the last
of the debris into the basement
 filled                                                                                
to a depth of two feet            with clear                              
green-tinted water             and Pahn                       
wonders how they will get it out 

He assumes
from the mother’s demeanor
        that there must be                                            
an easy drain                                                                       


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


Some of these poems originally appeared in the following publications

Avocet
Dream International Quarterly
mojo risin'
The Muse Apprentice Guild (The MAG)
Transfer

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