North Beach

for jas Your body is bent over the sides of a high jump bed that you and that other guy have scaled leaving me curled at the bottom, half covered half insane with exhaustion. And we don’t listen to each other with music in one ear and out the other through white wires; And the phone is ringing the red phone, the hot phone the eagle phone, ringing. You and that other guy just stare at it, blankly and then smile at me. I answer it expectantly. “It’s the president,” I tell you, “he wants his brain back.” And we all look to the table where it sits as we have used it for an ashtray, butts crushed, but still glowing in the frontal lobe. I lay back down, a dog at your feet ready to sleep. And then the doorbell rings, you and that other guy kick me off the bed and I hit the floor with a thud, mumbling under your breath about it being my turn. I walk passed the television, It is on without sound, streams of violence and war footage casually displayed like cartoons. I answer the doorbell in my underwear. It was north beach. I shout to you “Hey its north beach, and its for you.” You shout back, “Tell her I’m not fucking here.” She tells you, “I fucking heard that asshole.” I watch her big white ass saunters down the sidewalk. I close the door. I climb the bed. I tell you and that other guy “move over bitches.” Aleathia Drehmer 2008 Published by Kill Poet (Issue 4) 4/08