By John Grochalski
on the morning ice
i’m carrying two
magnum bottles of red wine,
and one of scotch.
it isn’t even noon yet.
i step carefully
because each step i take
could mean the end
of my bundle
on these neglected streets.
and then what?
coping with the day
like everyone else?
to hell with that.
i’m nimble like a ballerina.
unemployable
and i don’t care.
on potomac street
i pass an old lady
who’s in a hurry.
she’s sliding on the concrete.
i want to do the right thing
and catch her
if she falls,
but i know i won’t
because i can’t lose
the booze, man.
thankfully she makes it.
i give her a sympathetic smile
and she frowns at me.
i’m just another of
society’s letdowns to her.
then i do a pirouette
and head up
the apartment steps
to get to work on the first
bottle.
*Author’s bio: John Grochalski is a writer from Brooklyn, New York, whose poems have appeared in the publications The Smoking Poet, The American Dissident, Lilliput Review and Blue Collar Review, among many others. His column “The Lost Yinzer” appears quarterly in The New Yinzer (www.newyinzer.com), and his book of poems The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (2008) is out via Six Gallery Press. His chapbook, Meditations On Misery With Women, is due out this fall from Zygote In My Coffee Press.
