Walking on the Green

By Ryan Flanagan

 

A man will only stop smoking

when he thinks less of

chimneys

 

it is hard to give up on anything

that is cool

when you imagine yourself

half as much

 

me, I’m more like spoiled petroleum jelly

or Oliver Twist’s sticky

wet dream

 

or Joan Crawford in

Mildred Pierce

laying bricks for a house

of ill repute

 

through Munchausen

and manumission

I walk on the green

 

forever trying to avoid the fingers

of Rembrandt’s Night Watch

and all their dark infirmary

 

while I juggle water over sink

 

in tighty whities

that are anything but

flattering

 

and walk to the window

 

like a cheetah

on the prowl.

 

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, The Academy of the Heart and Mind, Setu, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.