Billy Clem: Winter

I’m eating at the local Shell,

again, a hot dog, wrinkled

as an old hitchhiker’s thumb,

with a bag of chips and a lottery

ticket I can’t devour but would

if it meant not lunching at a gas station

on another winter’s day bleaching

out the wide sky and preparing

to dump more snow to trudge through.

The guy at the counter, nice

and surely sick of seeing me

every day in the same sweats,

t-shirt, and flip-flops that reveal

toe-nails in dire need of cutting,

so yellow they match the chips,

sighs hello and the high cost of

a diet no one should be allowed.

But, I’m so hungry for this once-a-

day meal, contact, that I don’t care

what I have to pay in dollars,

body-fat, dirty looks or pity,

future EKGs and tread-mill tests

I’ll need to shave half my chest for,

taking too much skin each dry swipe.

I just need to get back to bed,

to unwashed sheets that rival

snow ploughed back to sidewalks

dog-piss yellow and exhaust dirty,

to sheets that know more of shit

than any citywide clean-up scheme.

Copyright 2017 Billy Clem