UNDERGROUND VOICES MAGAZINE/KEVIN RIDGEWAY


	UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY - 05/2012

KEVIN RIDGEWAY

Quarter Pounder With Cheese

He was a big boy
and big boy could cook
flipping pancakes in the back
of the drug rehab kitchen
other patients called him
“quarter pounder with cheese”
he had a stoic face that
never jiggled or flinched
his daydreams dancing
behind moonshine eyes
blasting Morrissey
in the dormitory
and talking about
slamming heroin
in those final veins
in those last lost months
before
climbing detox mountain
winning the potato sack
race and putting us
bloated alcoholics
to shame
he relapsed on Amstel Light
in a TGI Friday’s
at a strip mall
stopping traffic
while he tried and failed
to tie his shoe
before crawling
on his hands and knees
again

Kevin Ridgeway is a writer from Southern California, where he resides in a shady bungalow with his girlfriend and their one-eyed cat. Recent work has appeared in *Gutter Eloquence*, *Thunderclap! Magazine* and *Negative Suck*, among others.