PoetryAloud

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Collin Kelley Reads

​Knoxville: Summer, 1982

100 degrees at the World’s Fair
the Sunsphere shimmers
a giant lollipop that loses
its flavor in one lick.

We sit in a cheap motel room
flipping through unfamiliar TV
our sweat-soaked clothes
stiffening in the over-chilled air.

No one speaks.

Her abandoned lover 236 miles away
my mother watches the phone
a pot that will never boil again
reaches for it, then withdraws.

Back home, Bruce jerks off
without me in his dark basement
fantasizes about cocktease Karen
decides my hand is not enough.

Dad wants to see the body farm
bones picked clean of worries
free of cheats, brats and bills
his 43rd birthday goes unmentioned.

That night I dream the Sunsphere
is a Magic 8 Ball in my hand
I shake it hard, but the same message
always floats to the surface:

better not tell you now.

Collin Kelley

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