Doug Roy, Serpent, Cut Paper
Night on Malibu Beach
Two teenage refugees from Joplin, Missouri
in an endless mist
cook forked clams over a can of Sterno.
I watch them sucking down
more sand than clam
charred and raw.
Her pudgy and pimply
him starved down to protruding bones
that creak as he chews.
One of us will die tonight
hero in a cliffhanger.
Drip-drip of hip conversation
and barbed wire silence.
____________
Rick Adang