an old friend

is popping
little invisible zits
up and down his
left arm.

most people can't eat on this shit
but i can,
he says
shoots up
then asks if i'll spring for a pizza.

i found gabe
the same way i do
every couple of years:

by opening the phone book
and calling clyde
his grandfather.

last i knew
he was living in some rat hole
above one of them bars
on welch avenue
but be careful
i don't think
he's on his meds,
clyde said
and told me
if i was comfortable
let gabe know
his mom had passed.

gabe says
yea
he remembers that day
when the odometer
in his mom's zephyr
turned over
on the way to the zoo
in des moines,

tells me
she's remarried,
lives over in huxley
or madrid now.

yea
he remembers
when i accidentally
put the claw end of a hammer
through his hand

the fire we started
with my dad's black powder
in the woods
behind the trailer park

finger fucking
judy cox
in the swimming pool.

i ain't got alzheimer's motherfucker,
he says
popping little invisible zits
up and down his
left arm.

©2008 Justin Hyde