Poems
by Richard
LeDue
Boxed In
The lines in parking lots
remind me of chalk outlines,
but so much murder
would be obscene.
This leaves me cursing the car
that parked too close
to my vehicle,
which has five years left
of monthly payments,
while I try to forget the minutes
that passed as I waited in line,
and the money I spend on things
(like another t-shirt I didn’t need)
has written so many obituaries
with my pay stubs every two weeks,
I find the moments of silence
for what I’ve lost
deafening.
Driving past a car wash,
you wonder
if the overpriced coffee
(bought twice a day)
actually drinks you,
and if all the empty paper cups
on your car floor,
the closest you’ll get
to being able to afford children.
The Age of Clearance Sales
Shopping malls reek of death:
faces as serious as corpses,
who have no dreams left to dream
but a lifetime worth of sleep.
Their movements unblinking
instinct- inevitably forgotten
because that’s the truest survival
in an age of clearance sales,
and I feel like someone
at the zoo, mourning a polar bear
named “Gus,” until the invisible bars
make me see I’m on the wrong side.
