Justin Wade Thompson - Three Poems

Kid Was A Dreamer


i watched ol' Jackie
change into 3 different suits


trying them on in front of the mirror


i crawled back into bed with
my typewriter on my lap


in the sheets was a pair of
off-white colored
underwear

i imagined that my wife
left them there for me
on purpose


like a rose
or a mint
on a pillow


a little fortune in the middle
of a Chinese cookie


ol' Jackie
complained about his back


if you cut him open
Postmortem
i imagine you'd find growth rings
around his spine
like an old tree


every couch he'd lifted
every woman he'd had sex with
in an uncomfortable position, etc.


you're going to miss your bus, i told him


i sniffed my wife's underwear



they were clean

must've gotten lost in the sheets
while she was folding laundry


too bad.


ol’ Jackie left the door open
as he left


i could smell his cigarette
from across the room.



Amputation


i ate leftovers
and cold cereal, drank
coffee, and watched the neighbors


took the trash out across the lawn


the rotten pineapple and
cat shit smell
had become too much.


i picked up a book
and picked up the phone
and took
a piss, sitting down
on the white plastic toilet


next to the
shower with a white plastic
shower-head
cold water and
an espresso smell
in my urine


and my blood curled back into my veins
and then out again


and i pushed the silver ring on my finger
like a steel nut on the end of a screw


but was i loosening it
or tightening it
seemed like it was always a way to ward off death


and i was still afraid of death.


i plucked the cat hairs off my shirt
like picking fleas off a dead dog
and trimmed my toenails, wondering
if it would make any difference
if i just took
the whole limb off


i decided to leave things
the way they were


static is always better
than blood, screaming, and
hospital bills.



12 O


there was a fat woman on the bus
that kept staring at me


she was a mess


a disposition like
Francis Bacon's Reece Mews studio


i couldn't shake that face
while i slept through the morning
waking up with
a pain in my left shoulder


i turned and crushed
my pillow and fell back asleep


and there she was again


i finally rolled out of my bunk
wishing that my wife were still here
and not off to work
in her office
with other fat women, dancing,


in stale misery


in young men’s dreams to turn
their bones into butter


while their mothers grieve and vomit
at the sight of them.



Justin Wade Thompson was born in New Braunfels,Texas and currently lives, humbly, in a trailer park, in the capital city of Austin. He has never pursued a higher education, career, or full-time employment.