37th Best in America - Poem

37^th Best in America

an urban legend marched down

from the pine-mountain crest

leaning hard on his staff

and dressed in his best

robe of deep purple

pointed hat

and Tevas®

to shop for bananas, chicken nuggets

and yams at the Big Y

he nods

only children clad in jerseys

and patient clerks at the liquor store

whisper a polite hi

things are different

as he is invited into Papa T’s Family Resteraun

(the light in the ‘t’ is out again)

T tosses him a menu

the one with two coffee rings

the wizard always asks for it

even though he orders the same

chicken sandwich and pickle every day

they shoot the shit

in the linoleum box

techno humping the tiles of the kitchen

from the bottom half

of the split level strip mall

the day crowd at Electric Blue (café)

demands a more intimate show

the wizard never goes to the basement

where the girls wait

clutching their silver spear

but when he trudges

down the shared stair

to hit the head

he can see the silhouettes of their legs

splayed as if giving birth in mid-air

he can see the white tablecloths

and crystal goblets

and being a wizard he pisses martinis then heads back upstairs

a soccer mom dines with seven kids

uncomfortably forward

to avoid the gash in the booth seat

where white filling vomits.

when T is busy the wizard throws down a fiver

and splits this grease trap.

the stripper bar’s Christmas lights twinkle gently on him

and he considers

the potential in pink and brown areolas

but trudges past the broken asphalt

across the field of gravel

where the balding stretch of grass gives way

to the interstate

where snow drifts melt

and puddles create

constellations on the ground

not even the wizard daydreams

about Tolland

or patches in mud, though they are malleable

unlike clouds

the wizard slams his hand in a mudpattie

hoping it wasn’t shat by a cow

he understands the cow

trying revenge at teens,

more drunk on adrenalin than pabst blue,

they were to blame when she fell in the rocky soil

head wounds are bloody, even on cattle

and the time she and her sisters

were let loose to wander high school.

there the rumors began

of the wizard

flowing dreadlock beard

his sunglasses pink.

What is his name, again? For real?

the staff rises

high in the strip club parking lot

hailing the billboard

“there’s more to do in Tolland than cow tipping”

©2015 Lex Vex