An Inappropriate, Drunken Conversation with a Debt Collections Agent. By KEVIN RIDGEWAY

she has a nice voice, sounds 

maybe brunette and pretty as 

she tells me I owe a payday 

loan company one hundred 

and fifty dollars.  She threatens 

me with prison and tells me 

they are willing to work 

with me to take care 

of my outstanding bill before 

it is too late and my life 

will be over.  I ask her 

what she is wearing, 

and she says a French 

blouse and pencil skirt 

then asks why?  I tell her 

I have one sock and a 

pair of cargo shorts on, 

that I was the heir to my 

mother's lawsuit money,

which means I can pay

this silly pussy feather bill 

of theirs and we both can 

run away together to an

exotic location far away 

from pay day loan stores

and all the hustlers, 

jerk offs, pimps and

whores.  I'll get to see

her in her lingerie and

make passionate love 

to her until we draw up

a huge hotel bill that 

I cannot pay and yet

another debt collector

will call me, and I'll ask

her what she's wearing.

KEVIN RIDGEWAY lives and writes in Long Beach, CA. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in Slipstream, Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, San Pedro River Review, The Cape Rock, Spillway, Up the River, Suisun Valley Review, KYSO Flash, Home Planet News, Cultural Weekly, Big Hammer, Misfit Magazineand So it Goes: The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library. He is the author of six chapbooks of poetry. His latest book, A Ludicrous Split, a collaboration with fellow poet Gabriel Ricard, is now available from Alien Buddha Press.