Faye’s Taxi
After a while, Faye became halfway famous for complaints about the stop lights enroute on South Parkway. She’d say: they’re too fast, they’re too slow; she couldn’t predict how they’d change. Faye liked a pace well past the speed limit, busy taking fares to the glittering Pavilion. Waking, startled by bold green numbers on the clock. They made her think out loud. She’d turn over, mumbling, then get ready to drive. The complaints lodged in her chemistry make for a long journey down Faye’s comic river of complaint. When I heard her mumble, it was in contentment over small joys: melted ice, wadded green bills, those willing to listen to comments on Cadillac fins and mars lights. On South Parkway one day, Faye bashed both headlights off, started shouting about stop lights though nowhere near one. After the crash, she got old fast. She still drives a cab.
Hermit
we meet again you will show up in hermit’s guise. After a forced march, you will break camp, join a crowd at dawn. You suck in thrills, go a mile a minute on a red letter day. In an unwanted world, caresses without heat, notices of your arms. It comes into mind as you’re lingering dressed in silk shirts, paused on the corner. We’re certain to obey red and green arrows. Content in the outline, of trembling embrace, I suspect a light, but it is innocent. Since you’re a hermit, it works out the same. Saplings grow sparsely, on a different roadside, designed at an interval by both our infant years. Then the soul of a hermit was on a different footing. It was enraptured by items, that were stored in tin cans.
About the author:
Michael Igoe, city boy, neurodiverse, Chicago now Boston, instructor in Psych Rehab at Boston University. Numerous works appear in journals online and print. Recent: The Blue Nib, Mineral Lit, Anser Journal and Avalanches In Poetry; National Library Of Poetry Editors Choice 1997. Check out Michael’s blog here. Twitter: MichaelIgoe5. Urban Realism/Surrealism. “I like the night.”
DIY MFA 