Tuesday poem #241 : Ryan Eckes : chase scene

good luck in all your future endeavors, types the middle manager

chewing on a slim jim. back at home we’re rinsing off the isms. it’s

the wknd, and the middle class are out volunteering for the one

percent. we grow free w/out them, though they keep calling. feel

them push monday into sunday, friday into saturday. one percent

of one smidgen of a dead cockroach’s heart casts its vote, finally,

for the middle class. can freedom be a pigeon? if it kicks you the

right way. if it spits on your shoe and laughs in your face. if in your

neighbor’s face you look long enough to lose your mask, and you

feel it fly away, feel it shit on a boss—any boss—then yes.

Ryan Eckes is a poet who lives in South Philadelphia. His books include Valu-Plus and Old News (Furniture Press 2014, 2011). You can read some of his poems in Tripwire, The Brooklyn Rail, Slow Poetry in America Newsletter, Supplement, Public Pool, Whirlwind and on his blog. He is the recipient of a 2016 Pew Fellowship in the Arts.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan