timmy

timmy

timmy liked to blow up frogs with firecrackers

and set the school on fire.

he smelled like sour milk,

his hands had warts,

his piggy eyes would dart

from pain to cunning

he was teased

about his baggy pants

and dirty shirts.

about his pudgy gut.

mid conversation

he was prone to fart

i used to look for him

on the wanted posters

tacked up in post offices 

but never saw him

maybe he's locked up somewhere

or dead.

If not then I imagine him

down some muddy drive

sitting in a shack or single wide

with tattered curtains drawn

a battered truck askew out front,

the cargo bed a pile of greasy rope,

an orphaned boot, scraps of pipe

and matted fur, a broken hairbrush

and a headless doll.

in the shack, a television badly tuned

to documentaries of burning villages

and stacks of corpses. when he isn't watching

rape scene porn that is. at 3:00 am,

he snorts another line of crank

it's time to oil his gun and sharpen knives

timmy sweeps crumpled bud cans

and candy wrappers off the table

humming not a tune

-there is no music in this house-

but a mimicry of some machine,

the struggle of a failing refrigerator compressor

out side a scabby mutt whimpers in his chains

timmy smiles and whispers

shut up dog, before i come out and make you

he waves a cloud of flies off a tub

of stinking chicken wings

and throws it out the door at the dog

you happy now? you happy now?

git busy, we got work to do