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Picture"Sweet Light to Measure End of Day" by Louis Staeble
Old Man Poems


By the Westside Barbecue on 70,

a woman re-crossed the highway

from the Pakistani convenience store.

A cigarette arched from her lips,

she lugged a plastic bag of something

back to the lesser of two nearby strip clubs.

He noticed she had dressed

the minimum necessary

to complete the trip,

A black bikini top tied

haphazardly behind her neck,

gray cutoff gym shorts

clinging to her hefty hips.

In an instant, she flip flopped past,


watching for traffic and

delivering him a ferocious look

as if every deprived inch

of her story coiled and struck

in one narrative motion,

just as the light changed.



Tim Peeler
​


​Tim Peeler is an educator from Hickory, NC. His most recent book is ROUGH BEAST from Future Cycle Press.

​Louis Staeble lives in Bowling Green, Ohio. His photographs have appeared in dislocate magazine, Driftwood, Four Ties Literary Review, Iron Gall, On The Rusk, Paper Tape Magazine, Petrichor and Tupelo Quarterly. His web page can be viewed at http://staeblestudioa.weebly.com.
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