There was a dead little cat
Splayed in the middle lane of Washington Street
While I passed
And there was a man clumped to the curb
Pinching his chubby chin
Between his thumb and index finger
Like a final played poker chip
His eyes as flattened as aces on cards
In a corner bar across the street
While the police rubbed his shoulders and pencil notes
From the rotten sounds ground between his teeth.
Another man a driveway down
Has a nose displaced a million miles from his face
Smeared into his hanky.
Hoping no one notices
A woman wiggles in the wind out back
Like a Fentanyl clothesline clipped with a menu
Her age is a choice.
A third man on his back naps
In that front yard
Clutching his hands
To a samurai sword’s shiny blade
Slippery and stood straight up
From under and through him
Bubbling
Like a park fountain of roses.
Did it all start this morning
In their tiny crooked house?
Their cat scooting from underneath
A missed kick and through a crick
Of an unhinged front door
Out to the busy road?
If that for them
Was quite simply the last straw?
One gram, yes one gram, that’s all it took,
The mass of a one dollar bill.
It’s enough to make you healthy, too,
When you swallow a little green pill.
One gram, just a small little mass,
Less than a paper clip.
It’s one third that of a coin,
Or a hundred dollar black poker chip.
One gram can also hold so much,
A hundred gigabytes in a USB port.
And it’s the weight of a small metal nib,
Used in a human rights court.
One gram, yes one gram, that’s all it took
When dropped on a Japanese hill.
One gram of plutonium for a hundred thousand lives,
To murder, to slaughter, to kill.
Pierced like a hot poker chip
plunging hard to the bone.
The angry wasp escapes
and I’m left with his lance
in my stubby forefinger.
Copyright © 2010 By Caryl S. Muzzey
First Place Winner ~ "Feel The Feeling” Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Paula Swanson
May 25, 2010
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