Alumnus

By Justin L. Blessinger

In a bath of monitors

Light swamps, swaddles his quick work

Finished in the blurry low-light of after eleven.

He slaps the humming box, quieting its buzz

of resistors and upgrades, their competition quiet now,

pulls his jacket –coyote statant guardant on a field vermillion –

over his collared shirt, the streetlights blur

black street flows beneath his feet,

swamplike and  glossy.

Home is a tangle of unwashed sheets,

Biting his nails to the quick, watching downloaded anime

Until he slumbers in

Clingy, welcome unconsciousness on the couch,

His pillows like low hanging fruit

By morning.

Doesn’t know how he came to live in the unctuous city

Slicker than the locals, less so than the left coast transplants.

His roots are west river,

An eccentric amalgam of yokel and wonk,

A flair for dramatic coffees, yet he still catalogues noxious weeds

And criticizes poorly built fences.

His youth is subterranean, underground in

53E in a clench of apartments, not far off Kiwanis.

Yet no cocks will crow, and he’ll still grind a meticulous bean,

Thrill his loins by sliding between two

Cars in the brutal traffic that lasts just 25 minutes,

And slap the humming box,

the monitor watches him breathe.

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