Molina

by Kristofer Collins

They lock up the library early but all the homeless
have their own key and drink wine there
late into the morning, and when I walked into that bar
it was The Moonglows and Allen Toussaint, it was all
top-shelf and after awhile the women were almost apple-cheeked
and smoked endless packs of generic cigarettes. Here we border
West Virginia and Vatican City, the weather is never surprising
in its ceaselessness and the fogged-over mornings. The hospital is hiring
and your high school girlfriend is moving back, divorced and dragging
children with her into her parents' house, lost her virginity
to you right there on the the floor and, after you passed out
from that sad release & too many beers, sat under
the three faint stars glowing out over the mill, her hands
already callused at sixteen.

Mannish Boy for Bob Pajich

by Kristofer Collins

I will never know what Muddy Waters
thought in his green suit and chunky gold
ring as his leg leaps up and crashes down
and his cheeks shake anymore than I
could say on such and such day
Einstein had a hard-on watching
the students pass under his ivied window,
and I might as well admit I used to spy
on our neighbor, a woman known to prepare
meals in the nude, the brown medallions
of her areolas still bring a tiny pain
to my groin, so it should come as no surprise
as we sit on a brick porch in East McKeesport,
or stumble out of some bar on Electric Ave.,
or when Nathan, rolling a cigarette in the booth
at Nico's, leans in to laugh at something
one of us has said and someone in the other room
yells, “Fuck, shit!” at the lottery drawing
that I wish I could say how any one of us
got here but really I do understand it doesn't matter
and there's a green suit out there waiting
for each of us eventually.