David Spicer has published poems in The American Poetry Review, CircleStreet, Gargoyle, Moria, Oyster River Pages, Ploughshares, Remington Review, Santa Clara Review, The Sheepshead Review, Steam Ticket, Synaeresis, Third Wednesday, Yellow Mama, and elsewhere. Nominated for a Best of the Net three times and a Pushcart twice, he is author of six chapbooks and four full-length collections, the latest two being American Maniac (Hekate Publishing) and Confessional (Cyberwit.net). His fifth, Mad Sestina King, is forthcoming from FutureCycle Press. His website is http://www.davidspicer76.com.

THE IMPATIENCE OF INSOMNIACS

Early morning. Neighbors slept like spoiled cats.
I guessed they dreamed as I rode past their homes,
 
homes quiet as dreams, not guessing my bike ride.
Robins fussed before the moon blessed me.
 
The moon blessed the fussing robins’ songs.
I jogged and thought of you coughing in the dark.
 
Had your dark cough jogged my thought of you sick?
An old man cursed the light that wouldn’t turn green.
 
I cursed the red light, the old man turned yellow.
Change, you turd-headed ball of shit! he screamed.
 
I smiled as the turd-headed ball of shit changed
and the man rode his bike past dawn’s amber light.
 
I wished my bike was riding to dawn and you
as our neighbors, spoiled cats, slept this morning.

I CAN’T EVEN REMEMBER WHAT CAUSED OUR RIFT

My sister and I trade toilet-paper jokes
on iPads after a three-year silence
 
After three years we’re silent on the iPads
We don’t trade pleasantries like stocks and bonds
 
We don’t bond by trading pleasantries
Each of us now a stubborn body and mind
 
Our minds stubborn quicksand that we can’t escape
Bodies thickening with fear of each other
 
Fear the other’s mind will not succumb first
Neither of us will be the first to use words
 
Use the words Love you first and be a weak bird
Thus we cruise on iPads for strangers
 
And strangers cruise on iPads for us
Wanting to trade toilet-paper jokes

ENIGMA

–for M. B.
 
 
A woman who lives near the salt flats writes me.
She sent a picture of herself in a hat.
 
She was quite a picture in her wide-brimmed hat.
Her name Colleen, she taught yoga to Mormons.
 
The Mormons, in their yoga souls, named Colleen
Enigma, for she defied their impressions.
 
Colleen impressed the pastor with enigmas.
He, like other men of the flock, followed her.
 
She followed no one, didn’t join the flock.
They all loved her because of her short silver hair
 
and the rich-veined silver mines she owned and loved.
One day she left them for a different church
 
so different I had left my church for it.
We don’t write anymore of life near the salt flats.