3 Poems
By Robert Beveridge. Published on August 17, 2023.
Counting Money and Recalling Time
So it was your mom who was
responsible for all that nastiness
in the eighties?
But it’s not genetic?
Well, that’s good to know.
Still, you gotta wonder
what might have changed things,
whether her actions might have been
different if, say, she preferred
Red Delicious to MacIntosh,
or if she’d bought that Kirby
from the nice door-to-door salesman
who stopped by in 1978 and offered
to get rid of everything in the carpet
as a demonstration of product efficiency.
Haven’t We Done This Before?
“Let me help you understand”, he said,
even though the strange green gas that seeped
up from the vent already did that somehow.
“I need to make you understand.” I lit
a cigarette. He mirrored every move.
“Understanding is impossible,” I said.
“Understanding is futile. Understanding
is the work of the only honest accountant
in a Cheyenne meatpacking plant who wants
nothing more than to come in tomorrow
with an arsenal large enough to level
the entire city. Understanding is the time
between the last bite of pizza and the sole
bite of dessert on the dullest first date
you ever had when you already know
the movie’s going to suck.” I took a deep
drag to try and clear the taste of that weird
green gas out of my mouth, chased a shot
of Virginia Gentleman with whatever
no-name lemon-lime effervescent mess
this dive we were in had in the dispenser.
“Have you ever considered just taking
a piece from the charcuterie plate
without an encyclopedic knowledge
of its history first?” He slammed his fist
on the bar, breathed the green fog deep.
It was thicker now. “...NO.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, it’s mortadella.
Those shards are pieces of pistachio.”
He smiled. “Now, was that so bad?”
The air cleared. I stubbed out my smoke,
filled a cracker. Foie gras, cheddar,
a meat I had never experienced before.
Teflon Eggs
clumps
of magazines
afloat
in the river
threaded through
with barbecue
sauce
dappled
with ashes
glow
in the sky
on the other
side
of the trees
Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry on unceded Mingo land (Akron, OH). Recent/upcoming appearances in Locust Candy, egoPHobia, and FRiGG, among others.
