The Shedding of the
Friends
“We’re just drinking,”
is the excuse they hit me with.
They cringe with anger and fear
and turn away.
Where are my peers?
They dump a mess in my hands and then condemn me
if I don’t take responsibility.
The mess is me.
Another drink for the man
who has scared all his friends
into the hiding of profitable lives.
I try to be friendly,
but it’s not as easy as it looks.
I say “Hey (I am a monster) how are you?”
My kindly desires undermine
any larger divine or malign purpose.
I’ll surely wind up married,
or a child of my rotten life,
or both.
A woman waits to explain to me
why I am not a monster.
I destroy every decent thing seeking her out.
Then I remember that these are the same people
who made a pie out of a boy.
The backalleys that housed my escape
and my invisible friends are bricked off
one by one, day by day.
Someday today will have been the golden age.
The faster I throw this day away,
the sooner that awful day will be gone.
The Unreal Woman
Reappears
The woman
who walks into this darkness
is the only reason
to ever hang a plaque or display a trophy
or write a letter
in a bar.
She hovers like the source of words
and stirs the hotdogs in my stomach
like lotto balls.
I wake from the day’s dream of her
to look into the coalburning mirror
and learn it wasn’t properly true at all,
like the pictures in the Louvre
and other heartifacts.
It’s a sprain I walk off,
back to the bar.
Colin Dodds grew up in Massachusetts and completed his education in New York City. He’s the author of several novels, including The Last Bad Job, which the late Norman Mailer touted as showing “something that very few writers have; a species of inner talent that owes very little to other people.” Dodds’ screenplay, Refreshment – A Tragedy, was named a semi-finalist in 2010 American Zoetrope Contest. His poetry has appeared in more than ninety publications, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife Samantha.
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