Figment Two

by Gerald George

After old Archibald put in an espresso
machine, all the poets in town sat in Archibald’s
Grocery and Gas drinking espresso and
reading each other poems that pissed and
moaned because of the state of the
world and how damned man is by
his own nature when, one day, old
Missus Archibald forgot again which
was the gas and which was the brake and
drove her three thousand pounds of steel and
chrome through the plate–glass window at
Archibald’s and maimed most of
the poets, and the others scrambled
around and wondered how they got to
be so lucky considering how
bad the world was, but soon they started
drinking espresso again and writing
poems that went on pissing and
moaning, and oh, yes, Missus Archibald, too,
they say, has taken to writing poems,
mostly about geraniums, hummingbirds, and
the shiny–bright light of heaven.