Two Poems by Justin Hyde

tasting the back of my teeth in a truck-stop booth

having been dumped
by the married copy-editor
and having dumped
the indonesian dipsomaniac
on the same day

a snub-nosed brunette
tapped me on the shoulder
at carl’s place last night

she asked:

are you justin hyde
from the class of 96
at ames high?

i told her
that was
factually accurate.

we calibrated nostalgia
over eighty dollars worth of
jameson and bud light.

back at my place
she asked:

where is your couch?

i told her:

i try to winnow
all superfluities
from the needle of my compass.

no really
where is your furniture?

i grabbed two metal chairs
from my closet
unfolded them
and palmed her right tit.

i can't stay here,
she said.
this is too weird.

indeed
as i thank the graces
for being blessed with
the constitution
to laugh about this

sitting here

tasting the back of my teeth
in a truck-stop booth.



ex wife calls

her grandfather

(winnowed
to a husk
by cancer)

finally passed.

and i think:

well

what was that worth?

seven decades and change
of useless hustle
yielding the same
foregone conclusion.

another filament
gone rot
in this cosmic
back alley
craps game.

turn
your ear
to the earth:

the sediment

holds our mortgage.