Cashing A Check
by johnmac

I just saw this wonderful line
in a column in a motorcycle
magazine:
"The mind writes checks that
the body can't cash".

The vision that many from the
old neighborhood have of me is
short and thin with a Pepsi in
one hand and a cigarette
in the other

Others will remember me as
taller and thin, hitting a jumper
from the corner or throwing
a "no-look pass" to a cutter.

Others will picture me at the
end of the bar in the Broadstone
with an open pack of Pall Malls and
a half-finished beer on the bar;
Don Gibson's "I Can't Stop Loving You"
on the jukebox.
"Pat, one more when you get a chance"

Age has taken the jumper
Diabetes has taken the Pepsi
Common Sense has taken the
cigarette and *****.

I am older and wiser and
hopefully more tolerant
I am satisfied with my life

but

to just be able to once more
fake the man guarding me and
go up with a jumper and
get nothing but net

To be able to, once more,
"cash that check"

”Milestones” by Robert Rasor, American Motorcyclist; March 2006
Copyright 2006 John F. McMullen

Remember that time of the angry anxious skittles. They were scattered across the white playing field of keys; with all those ******* letters that could spell anything they wanted. Kind of like my mind. What was yours spelling? Lets get food. Real food. Mine was more along the lines of kiss me please, or did that already happen. Those ******* skittles, which I hate the word, embodied our beings. The green jealousy of what those letters could spell. The angry red of which I wanted to do and be. The ******* orange, my fiery passion to jump and collide and the keys to spell NOW and LUST. The stupid yellow that would spell LOVE because that’s what it was. It just wasn’t bright enough against that ******* computer to stand out; to scream, “TAKE ME NOW or else you’ll be living your life waiting.”

Maria
kisses
like she wants
to take your head off.

The top lip
is an umbrella
all the way to the bridge of the nose.

The bottom
slobbers
the
cleft-chin.

When I kiss her,
I want to push her away
and
tell her
"quit that ****."

but she's green.

she's never been with a dude
the way that I want
to be with her.

And so,
the kissing
I tolerate.

The way she takes her tongue
to every black surface
that the shadow of her mouth
creates.

I shake it off.

Or
how sugary my mouth gets
with all the extra saliva
she wets my teeth
with.

I'm cool with it.

But one night,
she gets down
on all fours on her
sofa-bed.

Her skin:

patchy black
and white
from the moon coming in
and scattering
against the leaves
of an oak
outside the window.

Her jaw
working
in square motions
as she swallows
down
all that extra
saliva,
from all that
extra kissing.

And she said to me,
her eyes
placid,
glassy
and black
as leather,
"**** me like those **** girls."

Ever have one of those moments,
where nothing is beautiful
about anything you're looking at?

A taste in your mouth,
gets sour
like you've been chewing copper
and
nothing is beautiful.