WHY I AM DRINKING IN A TITTY BAR AT 2 AM By Ken Poyner

My hat wondered off on its own.

At first, I was worried that without it

I would be getting too much sun.

I’ve already had one skin cancer operation.

I don’t spend any more time uncovered

Than I have to.  I may

Sweat on my hat bands far too much,

But I have many hats and I

Can put a fresh one on at any time.

But this hat wandered off on its own.

I could imagine it taking my customary path,

A creature of habit, skittering on its brim

On the nature walk, past the lake

And through the statuary garden.

But then I began thinking

What

If the hat had grown tired of the usual walk?

What if it had seen as many trees,

As much statuary, as many azaleas,

As it could stomach:  had actually

Run away, and was searching for something

Out of its boring ordinary, before it - like

So many of my hats in the past with the band

Too soaked in my sweat - got tossed finally out?

What if it had figured one fling

Before the backyard trash can was its due

For all its deft service rendered?  Perhaps

It had gone back into the city, blowing

Through the haberdashery district –

Or to the mall, eyeing clothing ready-made,

But clothing much stronger than anyone gives it credit for?

What if it turned into one of the bad sections of town

And even now, by men with no hats,

Was being kicked about in the gutter,

Driven under a parked car, up against

The tire?  It could be somewhere

Unremarkable, being itself unremarkable,

Being just so much cloth formed just so;

With my ownership of it unremarkable, unknown: no more

Than the dim memory of a drunken man

Wild with his own independent sense of purpose,

Tossing quarters when it is dollars tucked in the brim that are wanted.

Ken’s four collections of brief fictions and four collections of speculative poetry can be found at most online booksellers.  He spent 33 years in information system management, is married to a world record holding female power lifter, and has a family of several cats and betta fish.  Individual works have appeared in “Café Irreal”, “Analog”, “Danse Macabre”, “The Cincinnati Review”, and several hundred other places. www.kpoyner.com