A Market Conversation. by Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

That man over there in white Bubba, / walking on the left like he’s got only feathers as props, / such a swagger, such a swivel as if he’s invisible; / I see the furrows in his eyes, and you can see it too. / Look at him; look at his loop, his second body, / I mean that polished bag in his armpit / like he’s got somewhere else to rush to. / I mean, he's got such a head like an owl. / That man has money, good money, red money, / sinking rich, you know what I mean by that; / rich like our lake of rotten clothes, broken bottles / from you and your children and your family. ...click to READ MORE

No. 211 20230926

The things I set on fire, I set on fire.
I don’t drink, but Dan forgets
I stole a sip of his beer, twice,
and probably will a third time
if I don’t become the forest first.

Language migrates into dregs of being
as the postman puts a letter through our door.

The only relief is water. Any form
will do. Bent beneath the steady flow
of a garden hose, gulping greedily.

Wrapping a handful of ice in a towel
to press against your forehead or the crook
of your neck. Diving from the tallest cliff
into water sending chills across your body.

I’m afraid none of us know
what to do with our desires

Every night in new england
I turn into paper dotted with oil
all fat and translucent
eating chrysanthemums
in a folding chair out back

Goes so far the pond with nostalgia.
Comes home the last jester with no smiles
And as usual state with bloodlessness
And weather report with heat waves.

The volatile figure in the solid tunnel
And the tunnel is already sold.
The obsidian and the opaque glasses.
But who should be seen by the obscurity?

after The New Pornographers To know the beauty of a boomtown

is to drink from its bottlenecks.
The curation of pleasure, oh

sir/ma'am/etc, you have come

to the right place. To enrich the flows,
their inevitable entanglements.

with an affinity for pigs the cur
bitch circles
                  bare legs
you step inside my silo
red with
         a taxidermy boar head
slid over your face
         meet me at the dirt I had written
slotted posted into your barn door

you come running earth legged with the cur
bitch slopping
                   at your knee

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I had to pick up Mom’s prescription and was further taxed with burning the extra fifty dollars she had pressed into my hand on two lottery tickets. Just two? What the fuck, I remember when the two-dollar ticket debuted, and I thought that was excessive. Whatever, it’s her disposable income, and as long as she can still afford her insulin, sending it straight down the shitter on lottery tickets wasn’t any of my business.

Rite Aid has one of those tall boxy lottery machines, like a soda machine only it dispenses lottery tickets. Sad world. It never bugged me too much to use the machine when she asked, but I always felt like a scumbag when she wanted me to cash in her winners. That involved other humans and if small talk emerged I always acted as though I knew as much about the New York Lottery as a Martian, and was sure to explain I was only there on someone else’s coin.

I planned to buy her tickets first, while my hands were free, but there was a woman standing in front of the lottery machine scratching a ticket, and I really couldn’t be bothered. Woman was practically dancing with the big goddamn metal box, her body swaying in time to the rhythm of her scratch. Fuck it, the insulin was a single pen, it’d fit right in my pocket. I’d come back for her lottery tickets, hands every bit as free, after visiting the pharmacy.

When I returned, to my surprise, the woman was still standing there; still scratching there.