"sounds like you got big tits,
gimme sixteen double cheese,
make it twelve apple pies,
wanna get run
by a train?"

lady in the headphones
was either too polite
or too scared
to cut them at the knees.

normally
i'd have ridden it out
as well,

but that afternoon
the boss had
put me on notice
for abusing sick time,
and on top of that
i'd made the mistake
of answering my phone
and the polite banker
informed me
they were starting
foreclosure.

i nudged the bumper
of their rice-rocket
and jammed my melon
out the window,

"the hummingbirds fly east
in packs of ten gentleman,
if you got more than bee-jizz in your heads
i suggest
you flutter in their wake."

a tall cut
of white ass-clown
with a crooked straight-bill
tore out of the driver's seat
and came for me.

i stomped out of my
matchbox kia
like a coked out
rhinoceros.

"BRING IT MOTHERFUCKER!"

he 180'd.

i grabbed his shirt collar
through the window
as he hit the gas.

a chunk
ripped off
in my hand.

i pulled into a space
and sat
until my arms
stopped shaking
and my lips
no longer quivered.

then i got out
and impaled the thing
on my antennae.

what the hell is that?
my wife asked
the other day.

keep that there baby,
that's prima facie
that the world
ain't sucked out
all my spirit
just yet.

JUSTIN HYDE lives in Iowa, where he works as a Parole Officer.  He recent chap manuscript is the winner of the 2007 Jack Micheline Prize which is due out this year from Tainted Coffee Press.