Corey Jack’s Misery (poem)

 

 

Corey Jack’s Misery

 

He’d been going good

Corey Jack, thirty-nine

One Italian heel on the ring

Pomps his hair like Elvis this time

Gauges, cause he tracks these things

The young guy in the mirror

Just shift around and tug out his lapel

Mostly thin

Mostly cool

Talking to this broad, who’s a little past it

She came up to the bar with a grin

 

“I don’t know why I had such a crush on Gene Hackman

Wasn’t he a priest? I think.”

He doesn’t know

He doesn’t know what she means.

“Corey,” she says, like he’d blanked or something.

“Yeah,” he shrugs and knocks her hand away,

“in that stupid movie.”

So, way back, he knew her, took her out

He hates her like she’s played him for a schmuck

Knows she thinks he knows her back

Said, “Liindaa” like he did because he does

 

It’s 1985

all the rush of immortality

Of that cusp between decadences

When gods were falling from the sky

Death and death and death

Came down

He feels scornful of religion

Big Guy don’t care for Linda

Jack, inside and out, has known this all the way

And yet, he feels there may be some law

That says your power, Corey Jack, diminishes

Because for years you haven’t proved it

To yourself

 

 

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Corey Jack’s Misery

Paranoia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2017, Stephanie Foster)