Hood
Give me a breakfast fast, he called.
The waitress, fresh from rinding a quiff of bacon,
one hand hot on the coffee, arrived.
Her face was a gurgle.
Give me a breakfast fast, he insisted,
pushing his fat luck like a gravy-boat, out into the
greasy air. It sank. You want
a breakfast fast? she suggested.
Her voice was suddenly pumice. His collar,
poorly throttled, rode on his scrawn of wet neck.
It's this way, he protested,
I've been killing since dawn, there are stiffs
pimping at the morgue. He plastered
his left hand on his forehead, miming a mambo of pain.
She waited like a thermometer
under the flap of his tongue.
Yeah. His left hand sulked. His finger
felt like a stiff trigger. He hawked a twenty-dollar bill
from a pocket, and let it linger
like a stain on the table, until
You want a breakfast fast? she piped up,
scarring her notepad with an imbroglio of pencil-lead.
She gave him a shot of Turkish.
He was already dead.