Duplex by David Spicer

Thirty years ago I rented a duplex.
My neighbors never failed to surprise me.

I never failed to surprise my neighbors.
A yogurt salesman and I played chess all day.

I beat the yogurt salesman every day.
He said, You’re a fucking ayatollah cheat.

I never cheated nor fucked ayotallahs.
Another crew were convicted criminals.

The felons repeated certain convictions:
If you don’t have a bullet scar on your face

You’ll one day face a different scar.
I counted two mean scars above my eyebrows.

Do ugly knife scars above my eyebrows count?
They rent space in the duplex of my face.

David Spicer has published poems in Santa

Clara Review, Synaeresis, The Sheepshead Review, Remington Review, Steam

Ticket, Third Wednesday, CircleStreet, The American Poetry Review,

Ploughshares, Moria, Oyster River Pages, Gargoyle, and elsewhere. Nominated

for a Best of the Net three times and a Pushcart twice, he is author of six

chapbooks, the latest being Tribe of Two (Seven CirclePress). His second

full-length collection, Waiting for the

Needle Rain, is now available from Hekate Publishing. His website is http://www.davidspicer76.com