Poughkeepsie

By Damon Hubbs

I’m waiting for the poem to come.
I meet Paul for a sandwich in Poughkeepsie
and try to dash it off on the train like one of those poets
who can write about strawberries in Mexico
when they’re on the way to the bank
at 14th Street and First Avenue

but it’s no use. It just sort of bangs
around like Nagel’s bat
and I don’t know what it’s like
for a bat to be a bat.
I haven’t seen Paul in a while.
He looks like a Borgia

and is off his face
about some girl he’s nicknamed Dark Odessa,
asks me if I saw the news story
about the kayaker upstate who faked his own drowning
so he could abandon his family
and flee to Europe with his girlfriend

Paul has a gleam in his eye that people don’t have
when they eat a sandwich in Poughkeepsie.
These are urgent times, I say
and the bats in their barrettes and tunics of silk
are like fifty honest prostitutes
clutching chestnuts between their legs.

Damon Hubbs is a poet from New England. He’s the author of three chapbooks and a full-length collection –Venus at the Arms Fair (Alien Buddha Press, 2024). Recent publications include BRUISER, Revolution John, Don’t Submit!, Horror Sleaze Trash, and The Gorko Gazette. Twitter@damon_hubbs