The Music

It isn't all bad

Sometimes there are unseasonably cold nights

where the mariachi band packs up

and you can hear the last notes

tired gasps

serenading the rats

and then it's over

and you feel good

with your half-assed Bloody Mary

V-8, vodka and your roommate's Worcestershire

It isn't all bad

Sometimes the best nights are the coldest

and the best drinks are the worst

© 2009 Lee Kitzis

Little Hells

Big-thighed Latinas riding by on bicycles
as the loud mariachi music blares out of beat-up tanks of cars
and it is Noble Square Mexican-town and it is a great thing
in the cool late spring night air of Chicago

I take a sip off my Evan Williams
and forget about my overdrawn bank account constipation
lack of love brain wired in a skull going straight to Jewish hell
waiting for my roommate to stumble home with his usual drunk
from his usual bar so I can borrow ten dollars from him

I can’t complain too much
I’ve got a low-paying but good job in a museum
for every little shit I see there’s a glorious smiling little tyke
whose parents actually give a damn
and who wants to see every dinosaur possible within that day
and there is no shortage of gorgeous black women
working the ticket booth with me

but still some of it’s hell
some of it needs to be hell
it keeps us on our toes

lest we become smiling Danish couples
happy with everything on the menu
or freckled moms in shirts with advertisements
and Umbro shorts with 700 kids
reading terrible romantic literature in a Panera Bread window

but not me
I’m halfway between
and that’s the best I can hope for
while my ice melts
and the whiskey tastes weak

Little hells
to keep us on our toes

I shouldn’t have that big-thighed Latina riding by on her bicycle

None of us should

© 2008 Lee Kitzis