Tina Barry

Hackensack

A drunken painter rolls cabbage roses

over hallway walls

dull green atop dull green

The mother’s housecoat

surrenders to a thousand Spam suppers

Gray-haired milky-eyed

her son drags one twisted

boat of a foot behind the other

Ping

ding

the radiator performs Japanese opera

Or it’s a sock-drying device

A couple of strays

hump behind trashcans

Modest they turn their heads from

the blue beam of our flashlight

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