this would have been two men walking at night,
and one of them would have looked like me.
the other one would have looked like he could
hurt the one who looked like me, except
he would have looked even bigger than that,
and he would have said, aren’t you scared?
the one who looked like me would have said—
would have lit a jumpy cigarette with
a wavering match and would have said—
would have blown some smoke out, squinted, tossed his
head and said—yeah, i’m scared. i’m always scared.
sometimes i’m screaming into my knuckles,
pants-wetting scared. other times i’m just
a nice, smooth, mellow scared, like unsalted
butter of fear. the big one would have said,
what kind of scared are you right now?
and the one who looked like me would have said,
right now i’m a kind of a rainbow scared, all
different colors.
sounds pretty, the big one
would have said. you got a pot of gold at
the end of that? and the one who looked like
me would have said, yeah, and would have taken
a deep drag off his cigarette.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)