Angela of St. Mary's

I

Blood on the doorknob
Blood in the wastebasket
Piss on the floor

The smell of vomit
and vending machine coffee
and the cross everywhere

They pump me full of morphine
while a Chinese lady thanks Jesus
on the intercom

They ask me if I have a church preference

My heart hurts

No
I tell them

I piss in a jug

while Jesus watches
crucified
and an elderly lady babbles
behind the curtains across from me

I like the nurse tending to me

She is very pretty

she tells me I have nice veins

When she leaves
I smell lavender

I could stay there all day
full of morphine
smelling her
next to a jug of my own piss
with a crucified Jesus watching me

Six hours later
the doctor tells me
there's nothing wrong
it's probably just a muscle strain

He writes me a prescription for Ibuprofen

and I leave
the smell of lavender
with a hurting heart

II

I have a beer
while I wait for my prescription

The bartender walks over
she sees the patch on my arm
the strap to her tank top falls
she lifts it up

"Did you get your flu shot today?"
she asks

"No" I tell her
"I was in the ER"

"Oh my god!
What for?!"

"Nothing.
It was a false alarm."

© 2009 Lee Kitzis

The Customers

The customers come in

they throw popcorn

and candy wrappers

all over the floor

used cigarette butts

little ice cream “Nibs”
smeared across the carpet

salt and pepper packets

cups with the ice spilled over

used napkins hot dog buns Sugar Babies

they complain about the sound

they complain about the temperature

but mostly
they complain about the mice

the mice that eat
the popcorn the ice cream
the hot dog buns the Sugar Babies

the mice that sniff the cigarette butts

and decide they don’t want them

The customers come in

and the customers leave

The mice stick around

they never get tired

of Harry Potter 6

© 2009 Lee Kitzis

Life Lesson

When I was 9-years-old
I wrote Service Merchandise
a single-spaced one-page letter
asking for a free G.I. Joe

They wrote me back
two weeks later
saying they could not give me
a free G.I. Joe
but perhaps I could get my
parents to purchase one for me
Service Merchandise has very affordable G.I. Joes

Fuck Service Merchandise
I thought

5 or 6 years later
they went out of business

Good
I thought

I wrote Amoco
for a pack of cigarettes

© 2009 Lee Kitzis

Death and Ice Cream

When I got to work
there was a fire truck parked outside

there were firemen
surrounding a pair of old legs
in old stockings

people gathered around

half of them wanted to see her face

the other half wanted ice cream
from the stand next to her

There was nothing the paramedics could do

They were gone

© 2009 Lee Kitzis

Harry Potter

Working the night shift at the museum
I've never wanted a drink more in my life

It's the Omnimax late show of Harry Potter
which means we get two groups

Kids in Marilyn Manson t-shirts
and adults who can't cope with reality

A 300 pound Chinese guy tells me he needs to use the washroom
I tell him he should exit at the top
he says he'd prefer to exit at the bottom

before the words "I bet" could come out of my mouth
he's out the bottom door

All the villains look predictable
there's the kid who looks like Blade Runner
the guy who looks like David Bowie did it with the Toxic Avenger
Helena Bonham Carter looks like Helena Bonham Carter with bad teeth

I like that the bad guys win though
not because I'm a jerk
but because I hate children
and like watching the loss of hope in their little eyes

and I'm sure they'll make another one where they find the thing that does the thing and the clouds part and light shines through and Daniel Radcliffe is 37-years-old

but until then

it's martini time somewhere
far away from Hogwarts

and I've never wanted a drink more in my life

© 2009 Lee Kitzis

Change of Seasons

There's a girl downstairs
she plants flowers everywhere
they line her porch
red purple yellow

my roommate and I
have a brick a shovel and three whiskey bottles
filled with cigarette butts

when her flowers die
in the winter

we'll still have
our brick and our shovel

only this time
we'll have four whiskey bottles
filled with cigarette butts

even though
her porch will be empty
it'll still look nicer

She's the prettiest girl I've seen
in a long time

© 2009 Lee Kitzis

The Way it Goes

First they'll take your arms

then they'll take your legs

they'll put you on overtime

tell your torso to pick up the pace

but you have no arms
and you have no legs

so they fire you

you somehow make it home

there's nothing on T.V.

and nothing to eat

your eyes fall out

your stomach collapses

when they find you

you're all heart

the landlord dusts the place
and raises the rent

© 2009 Lee Kitzis