1923
Spitting Cobra
The Fixins
They predicted hail the size of Standing Liberty Quarters,
with Lady Liberty’s face turned to the left towards Europe,
a olive branch in her other hand, a look of firm determination
upon her profiled brow, the identity of liberty lost in history
long before I closed my car windows, and yet when the hail
of North Carolina came, it was not the size of Liberty, it was
the size of a simple modern common copper penny from 1997,
and there were maybe three of them tops, and by the time
I closed the windows and kissed my wife goodbye,
the sun began to shine, the birds began to fidget,
and I went to the market, with three quarters in my pocket.
He showed me a little box
and it was very nice to sit in
but I decided I didn’t want to live there
and I told him I had a pleasant time there
and he said I am sure you did and then
I said I must go and left and went to a place
that I found outside
of the little box
that was nothing
like a box in fact
it was everything
in the world
but a little box
They said I could keep my phone with me
so I looked up all the side effects of the drugs
that had given me. Uh – I said,
but before I could say – Oh,
one of the drugs hit the mainline. I smiled
at the nurse because it was the drug that had
a low incidence of seizures associated with its
use. I think her name was Nurse Patty. It was Debra,
who was behind Patty, who had the happier one
in her hands. She was wearing a smart blue frock
and I feared her tiny fingers deep in the middle of
my handsome new sleep.
Ricky Garni is a graphic designer and composer living in Carrboro, North Carolina. He began writing poetry in 1978, and has produced thirty volumes of prose and poetry since 1995. His work can be found in online publications, print magazines and anthologies, and he has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize on seven occasions.
