Rob Talbert

Monday Morning

The fishing line

of desire too often

hooks my eyes.

My god the evidence

in my car alone:

her hair strands, the empty

bottles under the seat,

the severed nightclub

wristbands.

I watch the lemonade sun pour

over the people walking

into the office building,

over the swarm of purses,

backpacks, satchels, shopping bags –

we are taught very young

how to carry too much,

and the bags so abundant,

so deep, that grief

needn’t ever be left behind.

My paycheck always hits

barely just in time,

like everything else

that saves me

and the raccoons still refuse

to go to the police

with what they know.

Like everyone else

I am given the choice:

where to go,

what to carry.

We are all growing

calmly

in our shirts.

Leading Up to Something like a Prayer

The traffic light turns

red and I stop beside the museum.

Vacant and deep. Closed

for hours, now. The windows

throw back a lead-filled street of cars

and concrete. I have seen this.

            Only the security guard

patrols inside. Humming

or drinking or reading

or jerking-off or whatever

it is he does after so many hours

alone with the masters.

            The light turns

green and I turn

onto a street named

after a great man. A song

on the radio carries on its back

the era it launched. I hum off-key.

I pass statues in the park.

            Everything I do

is so easily forgotten. Barely

noticed despite the constellation

of cameras recording me from above,

and hoping, perhaps, that I’ll

do something other than walk

            with my head down.

I go into Wal-Mart. I pick up wine.

I stand in line, waiting for the one night

of my life that will go filed away

with the masters, not this small and fragile

history, written by the trapped sparrow.

Bonham Exchange Nightclub

closer and closer

two bodies get

but the skin

will stop

them

just as the net beneath

the trapeze will

stop the

fall

the spirit wants

more than the

body can

handle

and will pour forth from the mouth

like an insane river

honest and

wild

some strangers reach out

and hold other

strangers like

clouds

a strength succumbing

to the presence

of a different

strength

there are thousands

of ways you could

live your

life

and they are all here in this nightclub

this room of changing

and overflowing

light

in the face of each person

as impossible to ignore

as a bomb

dropped

the truth is we are all swarmed

by equal measures

of disgust and

contempt

and so easily forget that the body

found cold amongst

the trees could be

anyone

Rob Talbert grew up in the sweltering heat of San Antonio. He has worked in jails, bars, corporate offices, hotels, universities, hospitals, retail stores, restaurants and on cruise ships. In 2010 he received his MFA from Virginia Tech University, and he is currently working on a Ph.D. in Creative Writing at Florida State University. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly, The American Poetry Review, Juked, Ninth Letter, Painted Bride Quarterly, Passages North, Rattle, Southern Poetry Review, and on Verse Daily.