Beat Afternoon, Victorville. by Michael Dwayne Smith

Gimme a quarter, can ya?

says Joseph the dim

cross-eyed panhandler

but all I have today is a ten spot

as I turn the corner at 7th street,

so Joseph gets a free

smile and a high-five

while half a block

north two shirtless, tatted,

exquisitely

pissed-off vatos

exchange pleasantries,

and when one wheels out a tire iron

I slip through

the whoosh of the auto-slide door,

into the familiar chill

of the Miss Deed Liquor Store.

I ditch down the long

west wall aisle to where

all the glorious beer and ale gets

cooled out.

Holding a quart of Schlitz

to my brow

generates my Zen glow, permeates

my forehead and spreads

down the neck, washing

my overworked conscience clean.

I tote the icy bottle

to the counter,

trade President Hamilton

for brewski and a half-pint of

Yukon Jack.

On the street back to my

crippled Airstream

at the Count Your Losses

Trailer Park

I sing, Oh sweet

heroic night, the poetry

I’m gonna feel

through my broken window

of sky and dying light!

Michael Dwayne Smith lives near a Mojave Desert ghost town with his family and rescued animals. His most recent book isRoadside Epiphanies (Cholla Needles Press, 2017). Nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, his work haunts many literary houses--including The Cortland Review, New World Writing, Star 82 Review, Blue Fifth Review, Skidrow Penthouse, Word Riot, Rat's Ass Review, Gravel, San Pedro River Review--and has been widely anthologized. When not writing or teaching, he edits Mojave River Press & Review.