Mitchell Metz

AFTER A FASHION

Big shot senior
wouldn't let me wear his ruffled shirt

so in a fit of teen pique, I
messed up his closet.  Boy was he mad.

I lay stretched on my orange bedspread
listening to the Cubs lose another game

when he stormed in all bellbottoms and bangs,
fuck yous and fists.

I ducked and covered, tasted blood,
invited bruises, then bawled

a short forever
not for any damage incurred

but because earlier that week I broke
his school record

after busting out the shoulders
of his best paisley number.

Location: Oconomowoc, Wisconsin Email: Mkemlmekm@aol.com Publications: Crab Creek Review, Mangrove, Slipstream, The Sow's Ear Poetry Review, Naked Poetry, Eclectica, Adirondack Review, Artemis Journal, etc.

- February 2002 - On the Way to California (1849) Staying in the Lines My Best I Hate Your Poetry. Useful in the pink Mother Visiting her Daughter’s Grave After a Fashion Between Lately When the Plow Is Still That Was It The Wound and I - Stirring's Best Love Poems - Curving Corn-Fed summer True Love Conduit of Rain Gripping Aphrodite