February 2016
Alan Walowitz
ajwal328@gmail.com
ajwal328@gmail.com
I'm a retired teacher and school administrator and I've written poetry, seriously and less than seriously, since I was a teenager. It's only recently that I've taken seriously the idea of sharing my poems beyond these four walls—where they're met with great acclaim by my wife and sometimes by my daughter—and my poems have appeared in journals, e-zines, and anthologies. My chapbook, Exactly Like Love, will be published in 2016 by Osedax Press.
Marathon Pharmacy,
sung, not said, was the way I was told to answer the phone that hung
next to the counter in that faded store, bad location, lease up now.
There’s always someone with cash in hand who’ll pay the jacked-up rent,
invent some fancy business plan, post a crisp new ten above the counter,
pretend it was spent by some knowing stranger who happened by, leaned
on the counter, proclaimed Pet Manicures by Kim an idea whose time had come.
Doc, the pharmacist then, showed me the essential stuff: to hold the Trojans
under the counter, slip them in a bag while the customer fumbled for change.
Cookie, the wife he must once have loved, instructed me in singing.
She kept an eye cocked whenever I ran to take the counter, suspected
I was stealing. I was young and love hurt like hell, figured what fell below
the counter might as well be mine, and I needed all I could get to keep you.
-originally published in Retail Woes, Local Gems Press, 2013
Marathon Pharmacy,
sung, not said, was the way I was told to answer the phone that hung
next to the counter in that faded store, bad location, lease up now.
There’s always someone with cash in hand who’ll pay the jacked-up rent,
invent some fancy business plan, post a crisp new ten above the counter,
pretend it was spent by some knowing stranger who happened by, leaned
on the counter, proclaimed Pet Manicures by Kim an idea whose time had come.
Doc, the pharmacist then, showed me the essential stuff: to hold the Trojans
under the counter, slip them in a bag while the customer fumbled for change.
Cookie, the wife he must once have loved, instructed me in singing.
She kept an eye cocked whenever I ran to take the counter, suspected
I was stealing. I was young and love hurt like hell, figured what fell below
the counter might as well be mine, and I needed all I could get to keep you.
-originally published in Retail Woes, Local Gems Press, 2013
©2016 Alan Walowitz