She was cleaning the fangs of a baby
while I was trying to get some slop
into my gullywug.
I tried and tried— actually getting some
into my mouth—when the baby spit up
what was inside of it, and so I naturally
I did the same, both of us smiling
with our eyes like two peas in a rotten pod
that had known each other for an eternity.
After that, we fell to the floor and slept
until the host shook us awake:
told everyone it was time to leave,
which is exactly what we did,
one by one without saying a word,
shivering into the night,
yet relieved to be back on the road . . .
About Jeffrey Zable:
Jeffrey Zable is a teacher, conga drummer/percussionist who plays
for dance classes and rumbas around the San Francisco Bay Area,
and a writer of poetry, flash-fiction, and non-fiction. His writing
has appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and anthologies,
more recently in Chewers & Masticadores, The Gorko Gazette,
Recesses Zine, Cacti Fur, The Hooghly Review, Uppagus, and many others. . .
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