Tonight's Poet Corner: Mission, One AM

Mission, One AM
by Belinda Roddie

Tonight, the asphalt is hungry for
rubber, in the form of tires and worn
down sneakers, with holes big enough
to let the smog in between your toes
like greasy sidewalk chalk.

Under the street
lamp, an ex of mine smokes a cigarette
and checks his glock to make sure
it's loaded. He tasted like pennies
the last time I kissed him.

I take two steps from the hellhole
that is a strip club to Owen's liquor store,
where the window is still broken
like a fragile jaw splintered under
the weight of a metropolitan
fist. Whisky and juice sound

good to me: A bourbon apple pie
from the bottle into my mouth, which
still issues lingual soot when I exhale
too loudly. My gun is an extension
of my hip. The operation is complete.
I am half human, half metal. My teeth
are bullets, hot off the factory
conveyor belt.

The radio is the only good thing left
in my jalopy. My father tried to
drive this thing off a bridge ten years
ago, but my mother stopped him,

because replacing the car would
have been a burden. The keys are
half-melted in my hand. I light a cheap
Dominican stogie against my one rotten
molar. The pain is shallow, but it tastes
so, so good.