UNDERGROUND VOICES MAGAZINE/JOSEPH VERONNEAU

JOSEPH VERONNEAU

Sundance Kid

I saw your eyes
dodge
from customer to customer
to employee
making sure that no one
noticed your anxiousness,
your finger tapping on the
outer ridge of your jean pocket
timing out when to make
a run for it.

The alarm sounded
in full dash you were;
some hippy employee in pursuit
hoping to get a raise
from his minimum wage
or his picture adorned
on the wall.

He went up the sidewalk
screaming,
but you never lost stride
galloping away into the sunset,
another kid who got over
on the establishment.
I just wished that more
your age
had the balls.

Keeping It Real

Everything that he promised
to you
has been delivered:
the welfare check
is in the mail
and the TV is on
nice & loud inside.
Ben & Jerry's is ready to consume
in a big dish
half melted on the kitchen counter top
the second kid is on the way
and the other screaming
for its afternoon breastfeed.

All in
all
you've received
exactly what you were
wanting.

Joseph Veronneau runs Scintillating Publications, a chapbook publishing venue.
He'll be publishing JJ Campbell's latest chap titled "Feel My Disease."
His own poems have or will be published in Typewriter Voodoo, Remark,
Zygote In My Coffee, Poetry Superhighway, and many others.