By Amy Beeder

I see you shuffle up Washington Street
whenever I am driving much too fast:
you, chub & bug-eyed, jaw like a loaf
hands in your pockets, a smoke dangling slack
from the slit of your pumpkin mouth,
humped over like the eel-man or geek,
the dummy paid to sweep out gutters,

drown the cats. Where are you going now?
Though someday you’ll turn your gaze
upon my shadow in this tinted glass
I know for now you only look ahead
at sidewalks cracked & paved with trash
but what are you slouching toward—knee-locked,
hippity, a hitch in your zombie walk, Bighead?

• Relationships

Poet Bio

A former human rights observer in Haiti and Suriname, and a high school teacher in West Africa, Amy Beeder balances an ear for meter with an often ominous tone, creating a musical, at times mythical, exploration of how we construct beauty and strangeness. She has taught at the University of New Mexico and the Taos Summer Writers Conference and has served as an editor for the Blue Mesa Review. See More By This Poet

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