by Charlie Scott
Bud Goldthreat brought a fig tree down out of the wilderness,
And planted it in his folk’s front yard. Sat back to watch, wait.
Goddammit. Three times he did this. Three times it died. Distress
flooded in. He spat. Threw a wet wad of RedMan at the mayor’s pet goat.
Ha-ha-ha-hee. Like the Bent-Back Man stooping past the glass plates
of the Coca-Cola bottling plant. What else could possibly satiate
a boy’s budding cruelty? Those tottering bodies filling with the strong
brown fizzing brew? Like as not. You better run you bastard little tyke,
he’d yelp, and you could hear the needles of his vertebrae break
into a coughing croup-of-a-fit. These were the spectres I dwelt among.
*Photo courtesy Ezzidin Alwan.