You Can Do One Or The Other But You Can’t Do Both

I’ll be sitting at the door
Whenever you and your dude du jour
Decide to stop in for one.

It’s the curse of being beautiful
It’s impossible for her to ever be alone.

One of these skeeves is bound to take her home,
Buy her a few drinks,
Let the night unfold.

She enjoys the benefits of being single
In such a hip urban neighborhood.

It’s a sexual merry go round
That I’d pay any price for her to get off of.

 

“Night Skyline Panoramic” © TJ Edson

 

Nantucket One

I’m assuming you’re not
The same kind of dumb
That we’re used to seeing
Around these parts.
You’re only a witness
To an emotional burglary,
You’re not even a suspect,
They’ll never find you.

You thought you saw
Your second screw
Drive past you in the fast lane
On the lonely highway to Wichita Falls
So you sped up and only
Saw a shadow spit dust
And gravel up your tailpipe.

Only as long
As nothing matters
In the greater scam of things,
Everyone’s funny
For the most part.

Maybe you’re not
A Big 10 girl
All alone for the first time in the city.

Maybe you’re stuck here
Because your friends are upstairs
In dark, strange bedrooms.

As long as it’s still
Saturday night somewhere,
You can stay here and pretend
I’m somebody else.

 

Robert Bartusch is a bar and theater manager in Cincinnati, Ohio.
His poetry has recently appeared in Aji Magazine and The Brooklyn Voice.

TJ Edson is the Art Director of Oddball Magazine and a volunteer at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery. He has also had work appear recently in Boston Compass.