It is winter

a street sweeper sweeps

leaves up from Main Street

 

I’m sitting with my notebook

writing a poem about the symbolism of phlegm

remnants of furtive strategies

 

the morning tries to wake me

the cars to support me

the cold ground to go around me

 

an idea passes by about a man

addicted to self-help–he reads two

to three books a day

paralyzed by memories

 

I stop to wipe my nose on my sleeve

 

*

 

It is winter

the Post sports a picture

of a boy juggling kiwis

 

before I enter the office

a dwarf steps out of the drugstore

someone suggested he came from the subconscious

I argued he was a messenger

 

I ask him if he tends bar

request his business card

 

*

 

It is winter

 

 

and fall

I’m not degenerating

actually, almost fully marinated

 

I flex out my fingers

squeeze into a fist

unhitch the gate

 

unscrew the top of a baby bottle

squeeze in some carcinogens

insert my bristle brush

twist and tug

 

with only a tinge of despair

 

by Alan Katz

 

Alan attended the Tupelo Press Writers Conference on Barter’s Island, Maine, where he studied with Jeffrey Levine. He writes at the Brooklyn Writers Space, a collective in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.

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