Suburban Cow

by C.S. Fuqua

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The irony will be those SUV shells,
littering parking lots
in a dusty desert
under skies depleted
by that woman,
plump fingers licked clean
on a mild spring day,
windows up, engine running
to keep the air cold,
a minute stretching into an hour,
warnings everywhere,
from TV to radio to magazines,
not to mention the raging storms,
the droughts, and rising tides.
Obviously, Darwin had it wrong.
Evolution has nothing to do with the fittest,
but everything to do with selfish, consuming vanity.
The storm gathers,
but the bitch is cool,
her baby soon to college,
both oblivious, confident,
as trees wither, die,
her car trembling in the wind.

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After the Fact

by C.S. Fuqua

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Three years since last contact,
when one shows up at awards night,
squirming up for fake hugs
and I didn’t know you’d be here.
Generated smile and deadly eyes confront
while the rest of us take a step back.
The fake feigns ignorance,
but she’d be ashes if looks were fire.
Memories of then —
blood and depression,
name-calling and hate,
a corpse at the end of a rope —
smolder in this moment,
this glare
that surely conveys
the disdain and disgust —
but maybe that’s what
fakes crave.

21st Century Politics

by C.S. Fuqua

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Rhetorical wishes,
mushrooming —
action, fear,
run, run, run,
ta-dum, ta-dum.
Got the power?
Got the power.
What was that
said, said
in the heat of
rhetorical battle
now done?

Marked

by C.S. Fuqua

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Another one with Chucks,
hers marked up red and green.
Her hair in pigtails, tight,
face sullen and predictable —
I’ve seen the look before:
rubber bands on her wrist,
Cobain T-shirt,
red tights under ripped jeans,
and, two chairs away, her mother
in Sunday dress and Church-of-Christ bun.
I can guess their story,
but I won’t.
I feel her eyes on me.
She probably wonders why a man
three times her age wears jeans, a T, and Chucks.
The jeans and T — okay, that’s not so strange,
but the Chucks?
I’m tempted to update her on the long history of shoes
but I pretend self-absorption instead,
waiting for my daughter
who emerged from this girl’s phase
nearly two years ago.
She wears Chucks, too, but unadorned.
I see no scars or fresh wounds on this girl’s bare arms,
and that’s a good sign they brought her here in time.
And though she believes she’s angry for that,
she moves to the chair beside her mother,
subtly acknowledging
the numbered days of marked shoes.

Waste

by C.S. Fuqua

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It’s pickups now,
late-models with big motors,
no mind to gas waste
or lack of need.
In my day, it was motorcycles
and VW Bugs —
anything that saved a buck.
We struggled,
something from which
we shield these kids.
But this waste,
the lessons we’re teaching…
The lot that follows them
will certainly suffer
when it’s all gone,
may even have to take a bus,
or, worse,
walk.