Last Wishes

The 13 year old who finds himself
in the back of a Monte Carlo,
his life never the same.
A good friend of mine
clutched the rubber his father
had given to him,
as well as the advice from his old man:
nothing that involves you removing this.
It meant nothing to us,
aimless instructions.
One night
we saw a girl walking barefoot by
the swingset at the park,
pantlegs dragging frayed across gravel,
a name carved deeply into her arm.
The streetlights had come on
usually signaling an end to our evening,
that evening we bent the rules.
As she left us with smiles,
she walked down the park's grassy field
and disappeared.
We saw her a week later
and asked her if she would take the name
off of her arm,
old love gone awry.
She asked if either
of us had a razor blade.

- Joseph Veronneau

Getaway

The old man
walks inside the convenience store,
exits with a can of 7-UP.
He leaves his feet on the gravel for a moment,
peers at himself in the rearview.
A man comes from the side
while his attention is swayed,
sticks out a long object covered by a sweatshirt;
the old man stands and holds his arms out to the side
the other man gets in,
makes quick work of the parking lot
and out onto the main road.
The old man left his prescriptions and
some ice in a cooler inside the vehicle
how nice of the old fool, expressing aloud.
He pops a few of the pills and crunches the ice
the dealer is waiting for the car 2 exits away roughly,
it is rush hour.
The man starts to feel dizzy
what the fuck, he stutters.
A car coming off the exit ramp broadsides
his slowing vehicle,
he takes out a sign posted on the median
and rolls the car several times,
smashing out the windshield.
He is tossed from the vehicle through
the shattered glass.

The old man collects his insurance
and tells his grandkids a story.

- Joseph Veronneau

No Games

I saw him scuttling beneath a parked car
on the unevenly-paved
street near the sewage plant,
or peering from behind the garbage can
that sat on an old weather-peeled bow porch.
Adaptable to mutations even in unnatural situations,
mostly because he will consume nearly anything,
he undertakes a paralyzed terror
to hope that what has seen him
won't attempt to consume him.
Cornered on the porch rail,
he takes on a trait not totally unlike that
of human nature,
like turning a deaf ear
to the ringing telephone,
or ignoring a scene of crime
due to cowardice.
Absent by design, not literal
and the absurdity of these tricks work.
And during a vicious heat that sprung forth
in mid-summer,
the heat simmered the pavement
until the last puddles of rain were dried up
and leaves cried for water
alongside the staggered animals
trashcans emitted a filthy stench
that reached up and down the block
the last possum seen
wasn't playing,
he had passed.

- Joseph Veronneau

The Corpse Shadow

Is in training, laying softly
like a layer of skin, peeled from
the moonburnt sky.

Resting subtly underneath
the tethered cloth
that drapes my shoulders.
When sitting on the lakefront
I let him know
that my syllables I pen
are becoming sharp,
ready to impale him and his brother known
as fear.

- Joseph Veronneau

Ice Storm

Fragile ringing and hanging all around
I awaken to it, stupid in thought,
thinking of elsewhere, chilled.
I then lay my eyes on whitened road,
mind thinking of
a far-off joy to be patchwork.
Radiant in ice, the sound resonating
the motion of sky, on alert,
trembling in uncertain winds.
Life was this to me,
as certain as each breath
I say to each sloping branch
oh, how we are not equipped for death.

- Joseph Veronneau