"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
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.
