a wet night in brooklyn smelling some asshole’s cigarette…again. By John Grochalski

he sits there on the stoop

in front of my bedroom window

like a bad statue, smoking

playing on his cell phone of course

i’ll admit it is raining, sprinkling really

and this is probably the only shelter for a block

but i’m drunk

and i don’t care

it may not have been the best opening salvo

to lean out my window and shout

hey asshole, you and your cigarette

get it the fuck out of here

but the consumption of alcohol

has never blessed me with tact

his response of, it’s a free country, shithead

didn’t surprise me

people find patriotism in the oddest of acts

maybe i shouldn’t have

followed him up with

shithead?

oh, you wanna step, motherfucker? let’s step

and then proceeded to put my shoes on

while calling him a dirty russian

blaming him for the election of 2016

especially since he was already up

and walking away down the street

but…again…patriotism

really

i’m glad my wife was there

to chase me down

just as i was opening the front door

she’s more sensible about these things

and she knows

that at my age

i’ve gone more

from the ass-kicker

to the ass-kicky

it’s just the simple fact of getting older

let’s just go to bed, she said

which seemed a reasonable request

and i kicked my shoes off

and i followed her back down the hallway

the scent of that bastard’s cigarette

still lingering in our room

as cars

and people

and dogs

and my wife’s snores

all permeated the streetlamp night

while i laid there

wide-awake, festering

consumed with violence

but ultimately wondering

was that asshole even russian?

John Grochalski is the author of the poetry collections, The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), In The Year of Everything Dying (Camel Saloon, 2012), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Books, 2014), and The Philosopher’s Ship (Alien Buddha Press, 2018). He is also the author of the novels, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013), and Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press 2016).  Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where the garbage can smell like roses if you wish on it hard enough.