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[Poetry]

SPIT SHINE
by D.A. Powell & Ryan Courtwright

I mowed every shrub down to the nubbins--
it meant you’d see every phase of my creamy moon.
Ratchet it down; give it a scratch, a good one.  

Then with your free hand, shine my shoes.
Tie up my Calvins after you tuck in Hobbes,
& make sure it’s a good tuck. Not like Bobbitt’s.   

Today’s electronics can make your clock go tock,
but they’ve got no spit shot, no shining pizzazz.
I want to see our personals reflected in the buckle.   

A little jungle boogie so they put bread in your jar,
and you shake that money-maker so hard it’ll make
gazpacho—a cold soup—the short way out.   

Who says there’s no magic bullet? There’s one
for sale on my fleecy blanket but shit ain’t cheap.
I’ve had to shine shoes in the rear alley myself.   

I am sometimes called a king, a carpet king.
I think it’s the rug burns. I do, after all, lack polish,
the vigorous concentric circles to get the wax off.    

We will have come full-circle, then.
From one jerk to the next, eyes going back
and forth, mockingbirds mocking us:
jerk a jerk, jerk.





DREAM OF A SILER CITY VELVEETA BURGER
by D.A. Powell & Ryan Courtwright

You don’t 
run from cannibals. Un-
less you are the cannibals.
Damn, girl! Pick up them saggy
washcloths--


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