—MAKE ME AN ANGEL FROM MONTGOMERY

 

The Drill

 

    after John Prine 

 

 

It’s another Good morning morning and Lord, don’t I know the drill. The dull staccato, the timbre of cloned dread. Toaster won’t shoot. Pistol won’t shoot. Nothing fires anymore, and that’s all meant to mean something, right?

Swarms of flies scurry in the kitchen, buzzing around like a flock of conflicted buzzards, wondering about delicacies too savory to ignore. There’s chicken nuggets half-bit, plus gluey barbeque. There’s your last paycheck stuck on the counter, stained with Denny’s au jus, kind of like a blood smear, kind of like a cheek scar leftover from last June. And yeah yeah, the sun, she’s right there, out the window, looking boastful, all busty with acres of cleavage, like your made-up first and second. But it’s still July here, scorched as fuck, just another hopeless verdict issued by a dumbstruck jury.

God, and I do mean God, it’s everything but it’s also the pesky ornery bits that get hard to handle. Just ask Momma, or my uncle’s sparkly ring finger. Ask the Boy Scout Tenderfoot who pinned on your first badge, before and after he raped you.

We’ve been up so long that we forgot we’re down, like a clock that ticks on admirably, wearing a cloak of dementia. 

Fists, fury and a litter of brokenness. It’s a popped piñata, our broken, token livelihood. Just look around here.

All these nights—slippery and silly stupid, juvenile and too old to stay young—they don’t make half-sense. I guess that’s true and also a lie depending on the slant of sunlight on any given day.

Carly, now she’s down at McCray’s getting Doritos and Bev’s somewhere else biding time like I told him.

Me, I’ve made it a mission to get this thing done right, once and for all, so let me ask you: Where are you, and why are you so late getting home again?