Fish Fry

The place became terribly crowded about 10 minutes after we arrived. We ordered fish dinners and settled into noise. My wife and son watched the Keno numbers on a TV across from them. They were looking for patterns from draw to draw, like card counting.

"There's your 7 again," she said.

"Ahh, the 22."

I watched the door as more and more people arrived. Most of them were older couples, but some were young. They were all hungry and a bit unsettled as they paced the room having small conversations with friends and acquaintances, looking for a table that wasn't there.

The oldest couple slipped quietly into seats unnoticed before a table was even clean. They both smelled like pipe smoke, warm vanilla soot. They both ordered decaf and fish, then waited in silence having said everything necessary 20 years prior to their arrival.

A middle aged woman smiled at me as I ate perch. She and her husband had split up in their patrol of the room, keeping a seasoned eye on the progress of patrons. I smiled back at her in awkward mid-chew, thinking, she'd slit my goddam throat to take this table. 

Let's just say I kept my eyes open, looking for patterns in the noise, unsettled in my own way, as my son ate shrimp like popcorn and devoted himself to Keno numbers as if he'd discovered a new religion.

On Superior Avenue with a Fistful of Daisies on the Eve of the RNC.

It's summer in Cleveland.

Thunderstorms rumble

violent along the lakeshore,

crank up the humidity,

and seem to foreshadow

the ghastly roadshow of politicians

lining up skulls to be busted.

I woke up after last night's storm

wondering, "How close is the sound of thunder

to the echo of tanks on Superior?"

I've heard they built a stage on Public Square

for the voicing of opinions, strategically placed 

to be nowhere near any politicians ear.

Children, idealists, and rabble-rousers 

will bloom there like daisies,

until the tear gas comes.

I read somewhere

you can use a daisy as a gas mask

by placing the flower in your mouth, then

breathing through the stem.

Two Summertime Haiku

Independence Day.

Fireworks to the south

through a forest window, just

above the treetops.

Hide and Seek.

Kids count to thirty

in harmony before they

run into darkness.