cheap drive-thru mud cup
and the girl’s wide smile
as she slides it through the window
the way you might catch it
and make it last all day
it would be really easy
to resent that job you think
a box of books awaits your
paws with no pressure to goodreads
or badreads or judge
pleasure is best when simple/unfettered
they sit in the passenger
seat in flattened anticipation and just in case
(yes you take your poetry books on a date)
and the sun leaks through the winter clouds
just a little and long
enough to spray some D your way
then later in the ‘noon, another treat
chicken shawarma rolled in a warm pita
ordered from the sparkly-eyed smiling woman
with the quizzical-sometimes-fierce look that means
the queen of swords is going
to make you lunch and cut
it into manageable halves with that thing
and you’d better be grateful and you are
Koss is the author of the Lammy award finalist chapbook, Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect (from Diode Editions). They have had art and writing published in numerous journals and anthologies, including Five Points, Chiron, The Pinch, petrichor, Sage Cigarettes, Michigan Quarterly (Mixtapes), Soflopojo, Midway Journal, Best Small Fictions, and many others. WEB
NEXT >
INDEX