After each piece cancelled the other
the generals folded up their checkerboards,
declared to the homeless that the park
was now an open city, returned to their
hermetically sealed lives of solitary existenz.
In mirrors they checked themselves
for missing parts. From balconies
they flung Molotov cocktails
at high-flying birds. In empty parlors
they aimed guns at their heads
ones that fired never ending blanks.
They donated artificial limbs
to cabaret girls who wore
top hat and black eye-patch for effect,
who continued to croon
for their fathers,
girls who could no longer dance
without a cane.
Kyle Hemmings lives and works in New Jersey. He has been published in Your Impossible Voice, Night Train, Toad, Matchbox, and elsewhere. His latest ebook is Father Dunne’s School for Wayward Boys at amazon.com. He blogs at upatberggasse19.blogspot.com.
A Quiet Courage 