No Longer Her King

 

Because I’m terrified of loan
sharks, I’ve nestled in this
cliffside shelter of brick
and snow like a limpet on a rock.
Few roads on this island,
and I’m almost depressed: I can’t
impress my swamp duchess,
Paris, again. She sketched me
every day, even though the studio
stunk of sour milk and blackberries,
and then one night she changed.
You no longer fascinate me, Randy,
my radiator, you’re no longer my
king, but instead a burnt-out
young bum. When did I transform
into a parody of a lummox?
A chill now roars in the room
like loud woodsmoke
and its sorcery wisps around Che
above the bed. The blues oozes
into my skin when I recall
Paris, her moon-mesmerized smile
and beehive curls only two elements
of her war with culture. Whistling
to myself when the mailman clambers
up the stairs, I ex out the calendar
blocks every noon I get no letters.
No taxes. Not a note from Paris.
Today, just a bill from the sharks,
my name in red ink smudged, and I no
longer deny my life is a payment due.

 

 

 

 

David Spicer has had poems in American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Yellow Mama, Your One Phone Call, Bad Acid Laboratories, Inc., Alcatraz, Gargoyle, The Drunken Llama, and elsewhere. He is the author of Everybody Has a Story and four chapbooks, and is the former editor of raccoon, Outlaw, and Ion Books.