like a secret agent By John Grochalski

jp and i

used to drink in the same bar

but that

like a lot of things

was a lifetime ago

i haven’t seen jp in years

until this morning

when he was coming that way

and i was going mine

i recognized his stupid walk

from half a mile’s distance

and without thinking

like it was instinct

i jumped behind a bush

like some criminal

or a secret agent on a mission

waiting there

until jp was gone

and the coast

was finally clear.

John Grochalski is the author of the poetry collections, The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), In The Year of Everything Dying (Camel Saloon, 2012), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Books, 2014), and The Philosopher’s Ship (Alien Buddha Press, 2018). He is also the author of the novels, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013), and Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press 2016).  Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where the garbage can smell like roses if you wish on it hard enough.