Harry Powers  © 2005 All Rights Reserved

Ars Poetica

A stranger with bad teeth asks for one can
only imagine what. Nobody recognizes

his guttural tongue. Shaking his head, the bar-
keep polishes a tumbler. The stranger babbles

insistently louder. Talk of politics
quiets at a table of locals. Talk

is useless. Tearing his rumpled shirt, the man
bares a map tattooed to his chest, thumps

his fist against a place unknown
miles away. The ceiling fan creaks. A fly

lights on the globe, casting a monstrous
shadow.

Matt Morris
Copyright © 2005

 

“My first book, Nearing Narcoma, won the 2003 Main Street Rag Poetry Award. I currently have poems appearing or forthcoming in Antietam, Blue Mesa, Coal City, Georgetown, and Mochila Reviews, Hunger Mountain, and Segue. Visit my website at www.miscmss.com.” M. Morris

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