This is not a crime scene.
No gun. No knife. No yellow tape.
Just a gas station convenience store
And a plexiglass prism within,
Housing reel upon reel of
Super speculative government bonds.
A spectrum of colors shouting,
Like a street corner shell swindler,
“Test your luck for a buck!”
Here, the clerk smiles his pitch.
She steps right up
—prudent/patient/purposed—
Dropping dollars on the counter,
Pointing out her prospective paydays.
Again, he smiles and obliges.
Snatching several,
She bolts out the door,
A surly streak of floral print,
Stopping outside.
Her daily scratching post.
With smooth-edged penny,
She scrapes the silvery concealment away.
This is the one!
A blown kiss clears the film’s remnants
And Destiny’s revealed:
ONE FREE SCRATCHER
She trashes the losers—
Reenters/Repays/Replays.
The man smiles and thanks her.
4 comments:
This poem was inspired by a woman who would buy scratchers everyday from the convenience store that I used to buy Vitamin Water and mini donuts from (I eat healthier now).
I like that the first line makes it seem like so much more. It calls attention to the idea that there is a crime being committed here. I also like how you make the convenient store guy seem like a smut peddler. I wonder if there's room to play that image up even more. Think of the shell game, the guy knows he's screwing people over. Is this guy in that league?
I also like the "daily scratching post" line.
As it opens up, I hear a crime TV show voice over. That is, the narrator seems as though a crime reality/documentary narrator. This is a really cool effect.
Somewhere this voice seems to fade out. I'm curious about how this would read if this effect/voice was carried throughout the poem.
I dig the theme, and I like the irony it creates in calling the government essentially a criminal enterprise.
After reading Tim's comment, I realized that I needed to change the tone to start out the poem so I revised the first four lines to something with less of the reality/documentary tone. I'll save that for another time.
I think I've kept the theme and irony though. What do you all think?
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