Paul Siegell

*he who walks with crutches can’t be expected to hold the umbrella*

sauerkraut sticks to the napkin holder. thunderdown. mind riled, he pockets his 
postcard to attend his mud.

nosebleed at the delicatessen.

if with him, vagabond, bullfighter, what shaking hands with Theseus would feel like.

in come pawnshop playboys—“Then more al’ohol!”—with khaki-colored teeth. 
warmongers with appetites, all but one dig their scorpions in when their watermelon 
comes. the other just brownnoses the one with the best hair. 

good hair-having mother fucker, grumbled under breath. 

their waitress, she might as well get crossword puzzles for a paycheck, but to her 
they show no gratitude. skids. she’s used to the blisters tho. working this and
cocktailing at nipples and dimes over by the old jailhouse.

here’s to the detours that make mazes more interesting. 

knifing on with the bawdy, their table, one of the fake pearl-button boys objects, 
“—A nude doesn’t descend the stairs! A nude reclines!”

silverware screams at linoleum. 

fixing to rewrite their pretty faces into psychotypos, fists. skeletoys. he glares at their 
bridges, fists, to thunderdown, but then remembers free weights clinking in the 
prison yard, the address in his pocket. 

he looks at the waitress, considers grabbing at the ring of the Minotaur one more 
time, and does nothing.