So at the bottom line Johnny Cash
made me leave the truck and I found my self
a job in a book-store

I am a father who has no son
but sits beside someone
who bears the names I gave him.

The television flickers. The ballgame comes in and out.
The players have rippling faces. The outfield is fuzzy.
Old men sit around on rickety chairs shout at the screen.
They curse the umpire’s call, they cuss the clueless
swing of the bat, and they spit oaths at the reception.

pennies on the train tracks

pop rocks and coca-cola

razor blades in apples

red eyed creature under the bed

cyanide in advil

an alligator in the sewer

roach eggs in the envelope glue

and a part time kidney thief. 

But now all the young boys
play Diablo 3 on their computers and
chat on the Internet with little girls that
are so far away.