She sits at a sewing machine by the window
admiring the rain.
I pretend not to know her
and the way she hums in the shower.
How her children are all grown now
and will have nothing to do with her.
I am laid up in bed with a cast on my foot.
Flipping through one of her many magazines
on how to please your man.
The sewing machine keeps jamming
so that I think she is doing it on purpose.
To get a rise out of me that is not in my pants.
She pretends not to notice the sweat on the back
of her neck.
How could she not notice that?
And a vacuum from next door keeps running up
against the wall.
Sanity is a temporary thing,
like taking your dirty clothes
to the laundromat.
When it is over, she is back at the machine
and I am still laid up in bed.
On top of the covers in my boxer shorts.
Picking old food crumbs out of my chest hair
and looking at them, before tossing each
to the floor.
“YOUR CALL IS VERY IMPORTANT TO US”
She is waiting on the phone
for the next available customer
service representative.
Her call is apparently very important.
A voice keeps saying that as if
caught in a loop.
Then they play the same god awful muzak
over and over again.
I think this is what they play at Guantanamo
to drive the jihadis crazy,
I say,
really load them up on the high cholesterol
of bad days.
She waves me off
and makes her irritated face.
I wave back to her in that ridiculous way
the queen waves at everything
before leaving the room.
Then I go outside and shovel the driveway.
In a black balaclava that makes me look
as though I rob banks.
Disappointment
Standing in line
with my wife at the Dollar Store
today
this guy in front of us
turns and says:
“these new cellphones bing each time
you walk into the mall and leave the mall
and you can’t disable the damn things,
they’re tracking you all the time, pretty scary!”
I don’t say anything.
The wife nods her head yes politely
which I guess is an invitation:
“everything is made in China,
he continues,
no wonder there are no jobs
anymore.”
Again, I say nothing.
The wife follows suit.
She is learning all the time.
The guy seems to want to continue
the conversation with himself,
but the cashier calls him forward.
It is a great disappointment
to us all.
Chop Shop
the cars just kept coming
so that you were never out of work
and Delvin worked on the tags,
removing the hot ones and replacing them
with new ones;
the job wasn’t hard, not like the welders
and chop boys had to do
and even though the pay wasn’t fantastic
everyone got paid under the table
which meant a lot,
it meant your take home was
nothing to scoff at
and in a city where honest work is hard to come by,
dishonest work becomes the top employer
and since Delvin was small and not good at breaking legs
and didn’t want to hold up or have to kill anyone,
he took a job “cleaning the tags,”
laughing to himself each time he thought
about those take your kids to work
days of his youth.
Making a Change
You leave thinking you love her.
That you should make a change.
That is what she is paid to do.
It just means that she is good at her job
and you are bad at marriage.
I’m sure she didn’t tape it.
Blackmail is a whole different profession.
And diseases? Well she seemed like a clean enough girl.
Knew where the shower was and everything.
Don’t worry about this motel.
It’s where open warrants hide out.
And you paid in cash.
Under some ridiculous false name.
You should probably pull your wedding band
back out of your sock though.
Drive home
and tuck your children
into bed.
That father of the year cup
always waiting beside the coffeemaker
each morning.
It’s a Small World
I am standing outside the restrooms
at the Walmart in Sudbury
waiting for my wife.
Watching this little girl
work the steering wheel
of this 25 cent machine
in the shape of a car
which she sits in
as it plays:
It’s a Small World
over and over
again.
“Look mommy!,”
the little girl says to
this rail thin woman
standing by her.
Presumably the mother.
Scrolling through her phone
paying no attention.
“That’s great honey.”
“Look mommy, look!”
The wife returns
and we are on
our way.
The Sherlock Holmes of Daytime TV
A real whodunit?
No need for Watson.
Twenty-six paternity tests
with the results on live television
and no one is the father.
And you think:
damn girl, who much honey
does one queen need?
And the way they always run offstage
embarrassed
as though going on television
knowing 26 different men could
have been the father was not
bad enough.
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, RASPUTIN, In Between Hangovers, Red Fez, and The Song Is.
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