Cashier at the Convenience Store

Guardian angels don’t perch
on my shoulders inside her plum-colored
spectacles. Her aqua eyes unspool
a tape measure from my boots to brow.
She might have been a starlet
and ridden in a Buick. A suitor
may have given her pearls and said,
You look just like Grace Kelly. It’s my third

midnight coffee this week, third quarter
for the payphone, to call about
a dying poet’s last breath. The cup
tilts on the counter’s hinge
like the Tower of Pisa. Her bottom lip
pushes up a fault line. She squints,
and I shrink until she’s wincing at me
through backwards binoculars.

Her green and orange work shirt
is ironed for wrinkles. Varicose veins
run like rivers on the backs
of her hands. Anything else?
she asks. No, thank you, ma’m.
She zaps the register. It jangles open
and shakes. I rummage my pockets
for the cost and something valuable to say.

Bus Station

Rain will be snowflakes
falling in the mountains.
In battered boots, I sidestep puddles
to keep my socks dry. Slacks and a shirt
wrinkle in the duffle bag
slung over a shoulder. I touch my palms
for how it felt to cup her elbows while she slept.

Her voice soothes the loudspeaker,
You can’t pacify a mob with an olive branch.
Headlights splash on sliding gates.
Passengers wearing overcoats
fade into blue, perhaps lovers or relatives
lobby for their attention while counting
loose change. Heavy lids eclipse my eyes
and torching the flying sheep
doesn’t burn the clock off the wall.

You’re my good cheese, the last words
in her last goodnight kiss. The jingle of bells,
the clop of clydesdales and cranky carriages
rolling through sleet, slush, and snow
won’t bestow an angel her training-wings.
The funeral starts at 2 p.m..
Here, at the station, without much to spend,
it’s fast food, slow buses, and wilting flowers.

Leaving New Orleans on I-10 West, October 17, 1991

Somewhere in the French Quarter,
a lampshade crowns the voodoo doll of me.
Last night’s liquor and soprano sax solos
at Checkpoint Charlie’s rush and slither
in my forehead like dragons
over gold and rubies. While reading
Tarot cards, the Bourbon Street Psychic
suggested, Compose a letter to someone
you’ve crossed, read prose weighter

than Wordsworth, and trust brightness
buried underground. Confederate flags
flap in yards along the highway.
I think of three Freedom Riders
murdered in Mississippi; four school girls
dead from a bomb in a Birmingham Church.
A Texas radio station reports
that a dishonorable merchant marine
has crashed his truck into Luby’s Cafeteria

during lunch rush and gunned down
twenty-three diners. Before blasting
his brains out, he shouted,
All women are vipers! Gray clouds,
like a herd of wild boar, trample
the daylight. A sixteen-wheeler
barrels down the highway and huffs
on my tail pipe as raindrops
splatter the windshield with question marks.

Author’s Biography

Kenneth May, originally from Indianapolis, Indiana, has lived in Busan, South Korea since 1996. He was a member of the last Free People’s Poetry Workshop led by Etheridge Knight. He is the founder and creative director of the Liquid Arts Network, a platform with a mission to present art, support artists, and connect communities. His work has appeared in several literary journals and anthologies.