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.

 

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