Which One Doesn't Belong? by Hugh Blanton

For Angie

Remember the child's game?
'One of these things is not like the other...'
You are to choose the single object
among the many objects
that does not belong.

It supposedly helps develop a tot's intelligence.

At the bar there is one woman apart from the crowd -
out on the back patio - drinking alone -
smoke curlicuing from the cigarette in one hand -
her pencil twirling between two fingers of the other.

There's a backpack on the stool beside her
to ward off chatty drunks.
It contains a book of Bukowski poems.

There's a drawing pad in front of her -
filling quickly with lines and shapes
as the drunken day rages on around her.

In that grid of superficiality - loudness -
stupidity - narcissism -
someone inserted something
that doesn't belong.

Hugh Blanton is a truck loader who combs poems out of his hair during those times he can steal away from his employer's loading dock. He has appeared in Bottom Shelf Whiskey, The Dope Fiend Daily, Terror House Magazine and other places.