Poetry Magazine Bob Slaymaker

Bob Slaymaker

USA

LE FOU

We sit sipping beer, eating fried fish,
outside the tin-roofed little store.
We stare at the rutted dirt road,
watch the residents move by.
There's not much else to do
in this small Caribbean town.

Le fou stands near us,
eyes too shining for his age.
He smiles as if he knows a secret.

I don't eat fish heads,
and toss my otherwise
cleanly picked fish on the road.
Le fou watches closely.

He picks up the dirt-coated
head and skeleton,
in his poverty
begins eating them.

Welcome to the Third World,
he seems to say.

As he crunches,
his eyes pierce mine
like a fishhook.

THE WALL

At work we chip in
and buy a cake,
someone bakes cookies,
others bring soda, or fruit
for those trying to be healthy.
And we gather right there
on the work floor, and celebrate
when one of us leaves that job,
when, as we say, one of us
"goes over the wall."

WHAT I KNEW
(AND DIDN'T KNOW)
WHEN I WAS ELEVEN

Dad's in the living room
watching TV.
(Mom's in the psych ward
being shocked free.
Of last week's riot
against me,
my many siblings
and the chores.)
And I wonder:
Where did Mom go,
with her suitcases full?
Where's supper?
Who's gonna make my bed?