Every flower in a fenced
flowerbed only has a few
petals to pick from until
you're climbing up
the stem like an elevator
that can only jump floors
so many times before
it gets stuck on a chained
bench with a cinder block
back and a $1,000 bail.
Maybe after a few nights,
I'll spar with the cast iron
bars 'til one of them falls
like the petals from my thin
fingers to the sidewalk.

My car came in a close second, bobbing
on the trailer with the concrete tides.
Three feet behind the black, flaked tailgate that kept a Rubbermaid cooler and rusted chains from shattering passing lane windshields on a daily basis. I'm a truck bed and three feet away from my alabaster beauty, and I felt like I was driving it. Window drawn into the door, my left wrist idle
on the wheel, and an evergreen air freshener bobbing with the concrete tides.

Shut the **** up.**
It's hard dating anyone,
and *a poet's no different.

The fridge droned between the sound
of her impaired footsteps across
the 600 grit linoleum floor. She ran
my palms against the cave-like walls.
Eroded paint bubbling like balloons
before bursting, flattening beneath
her touch. She felt the key rack
with more keys than a piano store,
cork board with porcupine thumbtacks,
and the thin edge of the Disney calendar
beside the light switch. Patting the blood
off on her pant leg, she flipped the switch.
With her sleeve, she brushed crushed Oreos
from the table and sat. Scatted about
the stained mahogany was a few National
ENQUIRER subscription cards, used napkins,
and an overdue bank notice. Sliding the chair
back, she sulked to the switch and flipped it
back.

I-81 North towards Hazleton.
                   Exit to Hazleton.
Merge left away from Mahanoy
City exit.
           Luzerne County crossing.
                             I always thought the spheres on telephone wires were kids' basketballs that got stuck in the sky.
    Three New York plates in half a mile.
                              151 A or B?  
Kelly Clarkson tells me through static that I don't know a thing about her.
    Water beads on plastic cup lids by the "diet" indent, but never goes in.
          Americans are water.
                      Lemonade clots the cuts
                      on my lips.
The car's a few years old but still carries its dealership scent.
                   Adjacent drivers keep their
                   lazy eyes on their phones.
Prismatic flashes through tinted windows from a woman changing CDs.
           Oaks in the distance overtake
           stores and church steeples.
                *The earth is theirs.

My right thumb dove from my pitcher
into a man's water glass, soaking his napkin
and place mat. He pulled away from his mug
of Labatt Blue, lips curling the caramel color
back past his picket fence teeth. Like his wife's
diamond ring, she was turned away.
Her face was illuminated by her phone.
Sharon's back with Tom?

Shoot me.

He slid his chair back, legs scraping
the floorboards like a car accident. He stood
a decent four inches taller than me.
Chevrolet was printed across his faded
t-shirt, and his boots hit the floor like mallets
when he stepped. The pitcher in my grip shook
like the Titanic capsizing. This man was the iceberg;
**I was the captain panicking behind the wheel.

Modern and Contemporary Poetry
takes up most of the passenger seat.
Pages' edges ruffled like the balled-up polo I'm wearing. Tommy Hilfiger'd
be rolling in his millions. Twenty minutes till work's screen door crashes on the frame twice before settling. Three salad plates, a skillet, and two jars of unsweetened tea condensate
on the metal counter. They soak dinner bills and paper towel coasters.
The front door vacuum seals behind sandal families reeking of Chlorine
and hairspray. Beachy look. Three more families crowd in behind them, taking turns sifting through the hostess desk peppermints for discarded toothpicks. Reservations for 7:00 come in at 6:50 and demand a table. They're  just like the mints packed tightly
in the lobby, but there are a few patient ones at the bottom.  They're the ones that inspire stanzas in **Modern and Contemporary Poetry, the college textbook waiting on my passenger seat. *Three more hours.