Michael Igoe, city boy, neurodiverse, Chicago now Boston. Numerous works appear in journals online and in print.

Recent: sledgehammerlit.com, k’inliteraryjournal.com, featherpenblog.com.

Anthologies: The Poets of 2020, Avalanches in Poetry(Fevers of the Mind Press)@amazon.com. National Library of Poetry Editors Choice Award 1997.

Twitter: MichaelIgoe5. Urban Realism, Surrealism.( I like the night.)

Betrothal

She poured out                                                                                                                                   warm blue beers.                                                                                                                                                               They dissolved                                                                                                                                        soon vanishing                                                                                                                                                       fast in the glass.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Somebody said;                                                                                                                                                    I  love her only                                                                                                                                                             someone said;                                                                                                                                                                                                                pass the bottle.                                                                                                                                            I truly love you                                                                                                                                                 I finally told her.                                                                                                                                              That morning,                                                                                                                                        I took the time                                                                                                                                        to pull on clothes.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     I sense love lines                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      as imprinted smears.                                                                                                                                                     I used to see them                                                                                                                                               rendered in fabric.                                                                                                                        We've both been there,                                                                                                                                                            concerned with beauty.                                                                                                                                                                  As another implement                                                                                                                                    of most serious magic.                                                                                                                                               

Tough Customers                                                 

King Sol reigns                                                                                                                               over the port city.                                                                                                                                 Yearning to entrap                                                                                                                                      in heat and in cool.                                                                                                                                                     You wish for a rising                                                                                                                                                                         in the bristling power                                                                                                                                                        of his battered hands.                                                                                                                                                      Thriving unmolested,                                                                                                                                         tethered to the wharf.                                                                                                                                Pulling on a glass door                                                                                                                                    the neon sign behind it.                                                                                                                                                           To drink warm tincture,                                                                                                                                           she calls it black coffee.                                                                                                                                        Smiling then saying,                                                                                                                                                              “I come from Greece”                                                                                                                                                    Under the awning,                                                                                                                                          her broken speech.                                                                                                                                                                      Her habitual customers,                                                                                                                                  strongmen and stooges.                                                                                                                                                   As for us, she told me:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                we’re tough customers.