Rock Bottom Blues. By Kevin Ridgeway

the deputies

handcuffed me

after they determined

my severe intoxication

and strip searched me

my boxers out in the open

for all the neighbors to see

i begged them for my pants

and they gave me a

long shirt to wear

to jail as a dress

everyone raised

their eyebrows

at, a tweeker

in the holding

cell kept saying

its crazy, its crazy

at the sight of a

drunk, scared

white man

as he tried

to craft

a shank

out of

a plastic

spoon

they

gave

him

with

his

complimentary

chow.

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.