Eliot's Musty Pages
by Mike Jurkovic with Will Nixon
In between the unrequited crushes
the beginning tastes like ocean salt
and so too, the ending.
The clear-skinned girls
cast exquisite shadows
after midnight. Those outcast hours
when you return home w/barely a whimper
to find rummaging clowns reassembling
Elliot's musty pages.
At the bakery, where you last said goodbye,
everyone keeps busy.
Engineers fall asleep at the wheel.
Blonde mothers name kittens after Hanukkah candles.
Saints and sinners rescue pillows.
Say goodbye to alligators
in sewers, those childhood monsters
who outlast the collapse of time.
Say goodbye to fashion relics
who parade their pewter hair.
The teeth you once traded for nickels
are now third world commodities.
Say goodbye to babies agape
at the midnight fire.
The story of temptation
leaves no stone unturned.
Gyroscope Review !15