January 2001 / Volume Two / Issue One
Jason Floyd Williams
less than 12 Items.

As she pulled her daughter
closer to her 12 Ibs of saran-wrapped
ground beef, and further
from my 6 Ibs of grapefruit,
I told her:
"Ya know, I've never kidnapped
anyone before. Let alone a kid.
Wait- that isn't entirely true.
There was Angela.
She told me her parents were
cruel, almost tyrants.
Bill & I picked her up after
school. She ended up
staying in my car for 8 hrs
while we assembled vacuum cleaner parts
in a square factory.
She was going to live in Bill's trailer,
behind his parent's place.
Our stray.
But the cops were after us.
She left us to call her parents.
The moon reflected her eyes.
Eyes like a young Lauren Bacall,
eyes that punch the sternum,
and allow chunks of bones to float,
not pay tolls, throughout
the blood."

She paid for her groceries
in quick-draw, exact-change check.
Pushed the stuffed cart, kid in front,
quickly outside.

The cashier didn't even
ask how I was.
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