#rob talbert

[j0bberr]

Clock Puncher on Pier 39

By Rob Talbert, published by Cimarron Review

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https://cimarronreview.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/talbertforweb.pdf

[gustaving]

I remember darkness inside the car, and watching you in the night outside. Both sides of black cradling us like a mother made of void. I was more restricted, encased in a toddler's body, and you, the pinball careening between policemen. Your son in your hands, and I a son captive to that theater. Years later I heard you drove from North Carolina with the windows down to air out the linen of your screams about a man giving up, a man against the river of his own words. Of all the times you crossed this country stitched with promises and hope when have you felt the needles do anything but pierce? The buildings of any city stand tall and trusting, and I know you've seen them all, sister. The curves of St. Louis, labyrinth of Houston, the portal to heaven in Little Rock. But always the sky is wrecked at sundown. Always your son grows up and away. Soon he'll be strong enough to eat you alive. Some men do it so subtly it will feel like love.

"Recap and Apology," by Rob Talbert

[laurenvamp-blog]

---Cities can give you everything. A bed made of street so reassuringly solid, and all the sky you can take in, before someone picks you up and it falls out of you.

Rob Talbert, "You Jumped"