J P Dancing Bear 

The Boss

                                    —inspired by a John Gallaher art piece

Sometimes I feel like we’re characters in a Springsteen song—
That I have grease under my nails, and she used to be the Artichoke
Queen of 1982 and I drove her away in the night, and I fear
she regrets ever getting in the flaming details of my muscle
car. I always dreamed of being a getaway driver, but now I’m still
like the prairie in an office where I count the pennies of an auto dealer.
Young bloods come in and promise they’ll make the payments
and I watch them sign, I know, who’s going to bolt, who’s going
to run down the interstate like a felon. This is not a Springsteen song.
It’s sadder. Like an old guacamole green bowl that’s survived decades
unbroken or nicked. Sometimes I think I’ve aged a decade after standing
in this kitchen for a few minutes. She’s doing the dishes, and still
hasn’t said a thing, deep in thought, working out something I feel
in my stomach will tear a hole in the checkered linoleum floor.
Sometimes I hope for a UFO, aliens, to come and abduct us, take
us, as captured animals. Let’s see Springsteen write that song. Yeah,
she’s gonna say something. She’s turning. And I feel like I am
The Boss, in a darkness that fills all the old dream kitchens
that are all dreamed out.

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J P Dancing Bear is editor of Verse Daily. He is the author of sixteen collections of poetry, most recently, Of Oracles and Monsters (Glass Lyre Press, 2020) and Fish Singing Foxes (Salmon Poetry, 2019). His work has appeared in hundreds of magazines and elsewhere.