issue120havingabadday

                                   ZYGOTE IN MY COFFEE.COM

***BIO*** Justin Hyde recently won the 2009 Nerve Cowboy chapbook contest. His book: "Another casualty at the 34th street bus stop" will be available for purchase later this summer here: http://www.jwhagins.com/nervecowboy.html

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having a bad day for all the right reasons

by Justin Hyde

then your pen
rolls off the edge
of the café booth

&

as you lean down
to grab it

the little girl in a highchair
two booths ahead
blue eyes
vivid like lighting
smiles at you

&

you smile back
and play a few rounds
of peek-a-boo

all of which
makes you feel
a little better

a little
more human

&

you lean back in your booth
and chew your pen
and start pondering
the ineluctable fate
of the innocent:

this extrusion
of bodies
into indefensible shapes:

&

you go back
to having a bad day
for all the
right reasons.

June 2009

120