December 2016
I recently relocated to San Antonio and am adjusting to life as a Texan. Some of my poems have appeared recently in such journals as The Broken Plate, The Comstock Review, Exit 7, Main Street Rag, and The Meadow. Amsterdam Press published a chapbook of my poems entitled The Arboriculturist in 2010. Check out my author's page on Facebook or go to my blog at http://www.michaelminassian.com you-all!
Tropic of No Return
Against my better judgment,
I loaned my worn copy
of Tropic of Cancer to a student,
a pretty blonde woman in her forties,
who swore to return it
by the end of the semester,
but the last time I saw her before
she dropped out of the class,
she was walking between
two tough looking bikers,
older guys, with sun-bleached
hair gone mostly gray pulled
back in tight pony tails;
“Hey, Professor,” she yelled out,
“cool concert,” as they ducked
into a tent at the local Blues Festival.
It’s not so much the book I missed
or the ghost of Miller poking
me in the ribs and hissing in my ear:
“I told you, you’d never get that book back,”
but the marginalia I left behind,
notes and complaints to myself,
a trigger for memories in pen and ink,
the dream shade and crack in the sidewalk
scrawled next to Miller’s lightning prose.
©2016 Michael Minassian
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