USA

SBeno66@aol.com 

Pancakes

Oozing, glazy-eyed and porous-
Teeth sink through warmish maple
And melty butter and starchy slush.
The fork mererly rips through pancake flesh
To clankily stab the porcelain plate
All sticky yellow so the painted flowers
Look like busted zits.

Hands merely stick to napkins
So that papery white uneven squares
Decorate knuckles and callouses
Until the sink water runs off
the gooey collage.
A long gulp of milk
Washes down the throat's cakey sweet coating,

Then the dishes, stuck together in an accordion pile,
And the black-flecked, brown-buttered pan,
Picked clean of 5 millimeter, accidental mini-pancakes
Can be sudsed clean and air-dried
While we play out back.

The Cold History of 
a Small Thing

Bubbly, cold, brown syrupy coke surrounding
Ice cubes shaped like Mickey Mouse,
I perkily await my dark, meaningful fate:
A slimy pink tummy loud with
Cake and ice cream, and the curdle of
Digestive juices.

But my future now plays
Pin the Tail on the Donkey
And pulls her own pig-tail
In a frilly pink dress in the other room
Of the pizza parlor.

I blink around me at my fellows, my brothers,
In gold-clear plastic restaurant cups,
Some sipped, some 1/2-drunk, some just
Syrupy ice,

And I feel sorry for myself;
I yearn for warmth, a sense of belonging,
But am only cold,
Cold, cold, as the ice melts
And chills me, and my bubbles explode
And I go flat and watery.
But I cannot move.  I cannot scream,
"Drink me!"  I can only listen to the
Shrieks and giggles and imagine they're
Coming closer but they're NOT.  They're NOT.

I wish my future were a thirsty kid at
the pool on a hot day.  I want to know I'll amount to something:  
a nucleus, a membrane, a fat cell's filling, a bit of hair.
Not just a watery flat syrup poured down a dark rusty drain into nowhere.

Backpack

Maroon and black, crinkly with
Dirt and dried grime and time
Sour with specks of feces
Now old and dry, but then too smeary
To have seen come off the bathroom
Floor at that filthy train station.
Lipstick balls and blots of ink
Stain the pocket's thready bottom;
Straps inhale sweat, make them
Smell dark.

Wrinkled body now full,
Zipper's weak:
My backpack could open any minute
And my underwear, white and weird
Against the dirty maroon canvas,
Could fall out for all to see.
Criminals would perk up
Dreaming of coins and cash and cards
At a dirty fingernail's reach.

I cuddle it like a baby
As I sit mulling, the windows passing.
Home, I shove it
Into the closet's corner
There in solitude to crouch, as thrown,
All soiled, mangled, hunched,
Next to the old license plate
Glaring at it in the dark.

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