Alan King
is a Cave Canem fellow and a Vona Alum whose poems have appeared in Audience, Alehouse, Boxcar Poetry Review, Indiana Review and MiPoesias, among others.
When he is not sending out poems to journals, he’s chasing the muse through Washington, D.C.—people watching with his boys and laughing at the crazy things strangers say to get close to one another.
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Swindle
An empty wallet
gapes from the dresser.
On the floor, pants pockets
turned out. Shrugging:
Sorry, nothing here.
You fed that line to a beggar
outside the Chili Bowl, and to a guy
who rolled up on your car
at the traffic light with a squeegee
and a bottle of Windex.
It’s been months since you were laid off.
Now, you get ransom letters
instead of benefits. Your resumes are letters
in bottles bobbing to wherever prayers
take them. Even birds seem to cackle,
and trees shake their leafy-green ’fros
as if you were a boy
watching the deft hands of a con.
Opportunity—the little white ball
under those plastic cups.
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