NICE by David Spicer

The resident medievalist
at the Poetry After Hours bar
informed us nice once meant stupid.
Most rednecks are nice, then, huh?
I asked. Yes, she said. Bob weighed in,
And a skater’s curvy butt isn’t nice?
As nice as you want it, she smiled.
But a butt can’t talk, so it’s nice,
huh, Bob said. It’s especially nice
if it can’t talk, the resident said.
Oh, you’re just being nice,
the nice bartender commented.
I’m not a nice person, the medievalist said.
Of course you are, the bartender
said, you’re the nicest person I know.
The resident drunk piped in,
Ya’ll sure say nice a lot.
Are ya’ll convincing yourselves you’re
nice? Course not, Bob said,
we’re dissecting how nicely etymologies
linger in definitions of words.
The drunk said, So all these years everybody’s
been telling me what a nice person I was
were saying I’m stupid? No, the bartender
said, you’re the opposite of nice
because you’re a drunk. Oh, I said,
be nice, now. Well, the drunk said, ya’ll
throw around that word so much it don’t mean
buttkuss. You’re right, the medievalist said.
We need to stop. Hey, did I tell
ya’ll where I’m going on my vacation?
the bartender asked. Where?
Nice.

David Spicer has published poems in The Santa Clara Review, Synaeresis, Chiron Review, Remington Review, unbroken, Raw, Third Wednesday, Yellow Mama, The Midnite Lane Boutique, The Bookends Review, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Gargoyle, and elsewhere. Nominated for a Best of the Net three times and a Pushcart once, he is author of one full-length poetry collection, Everybody Has a Story (St. Luke's Press). His latest chapbook is From the Limbs of a Pear Tree, (Flutter Press). He lives in Memphis.