The
No-Account Stick Figure
a
stray to be corralled=tallied=the prison door’s crossbar
This old man, he
played one,
the
lone fuse=sizzing atop the cartoon bomb
He played knick-knack
on my thumb;
his
hash-marked torso=proof no prod was spared
With a knick-knack
patty-whack,
the
mutt basting his dead shin=imagining shank en brochette
Give the dog a bone,
the
vagabond=hanged by his vowels=in a child’s guessing game
This old man came
rolling home.
Maureen Kingston lives and works in eastern Nebraska. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in
The Centrifugal Eye, Constellations, Emerge Literary Journal, Lily,
The Meadowland Review, Psychic Meatloaf, Stone Highway Review and Terrain.org.
