10/9c

[rowens]

Now that there was no telephone
in the house,
those late night strangers never called
anymore.

There was a burned out cigarette
that looked like
the bent leg of a weird puppet
like you saw
in stop motion animation

shows. That reminded me,
I watched it
drooping like that and I dropped it
on the floor.
The ashes anyway.

I turned
the tv on
and heard it say:

"He burned like that,
oh man,
something, really something weird.
I'm just, by the way, oh,
good God. Uh huh."

Some girl was talking on the phone,
her back turned
to the person approaching her
from behind.

Then it went to commercial.
A show I liked was coming on next.

I put the tv sound on mute
but left it
on that station while I went out
of the room
to find the pack of cigarettes

I'd forgotten in the freezer.
Now the show was back on.

A cigarette from that pack was cold
like a frozen carrot stick.
I chewed on the end as I lighted it.
It came on like a flashlight
while I watched tv.

It hadn't came back to that scene
with the girl,
instead there was a room of men,
some police
talking at the police station.

I wondered what I'd do if the show I wanted to watch
didn't come on for some reason. Then it said it
at the bottom of the screen:
"Special Two Hour Season Finale" of the show that was still on.

So that was it.
There was nothing coming on tonight,
I'd have to wait to see if it came on next week.

Somebody in the house next door
cut the air conditioner on
to drown out the sound of the dogs.

People say America is such a bad and scary place
so to make life interesting enough
to live in these times.