They can’t kill us. We’re like cockroaches By Alex Stolis

Tony-boy said, after his kidney transplant.

I’d finished seven weeks of radiation; 

sixty-years of sobriety between us,

uncountable near misses, bullseyes,

a few decades worth of blackouts.

Last call bar fights at The Cove,

plate glass shrapnel flying outside

The Lamplighter, Tommy pulled

us apart when sirens started to wail.

We ricocheted across the Oliver Bridge

to the after-after party at the Ace High, 

black-eyed and bloodied, windows down

stereo blasting The Clash, I Fought the Law; 

another last second Houdinied escape.

Alex Stolis is the author of the poetry collections Pop. 1280 (Cyberwit, 2021) and John Berryman Died Here (Cyberwit, 2020), as well as the chapbooks Postcards from the Knife-Thrower’s Wife (Louisiana Literature Press, 2024), RIP Winston Smith (Alien Buddha Press, 2024), and The Hum of Geometry; The Music of Spheres (Bottlecap Press, 2024). His poems have appeared in One Art, San Pedro Review, Unleashed Lit, Louisiana Literature Review, and other journals. Stolis lives in upstate New York with his partner, poet Catherine Arra.