Broke
by Michael Camden
Somewhere on a subway platform
some wooly suit singing
my loan performs virelai wrings
while cutting apple skins
onto plates for green and red coins
Somewhere under a green light
red as the bony hands stroking bronze hoofs
with some reasoned incantation to start the flood,
faces
against the cheeseburgers caparisoned over buses
behind the side blinded gaze of riot trotters
row of faces wet with spit and sweat
lips licked with curses
Somewhere on a subway platform
some smiling drifter singing
my loan performs rondeau grifter wrings
while hands touch for empty hands
and the shadow of a drunken bear
comes shrinking over the tunnel rails.
Michael Camden lives near Philadelphia, where he has featured and read at open mics. He studied literature at Boston University. His work appears in MOLT Journal and Amethyst Arsenic. In September he will begin graduate school in teaching and literature at University of Massachusetts Boston. He is currently writing a novel.