Corey Mesler

 The Party of Special Things to Do

The Band was singing Kingdom Come.

Freddy was there with his colored balls

and his glass half fulfilled.

Judy took off her blouse. Randy

took off when the cops arrived.

There were other women suffering

things our eyes hadn’t seen before

or since. Jay had a jay the

size of a carrot, diamond bright

like a night with Angela.

The party wound down when the

Catholics started chanting like

airport saints. Rich asked me if I

wanted to see Robin’s underwear

but that bird had flown. And

that meant I was sleeping in the bathtub

again; my prayers would be filled with

cleansing like the ethnic washday.

I love you, I told the woman I woke

up with. She turned slowly to salt

and I used a pinch of her in my bloody

Mary, which I had with the eggs

from the communion tray. All day I

replayed the party like it was Safe

as Milk. All day I was a sucker

but I loved myself almost as much

as I loved Meghan’s tights, and

her gams, lush like the fields of the Lord.

COREY MESLER has been published in numerous anthologies and journals including Poetry, Gargoyle, Five Points, Good Poems American Places, and New Stories from the South. He has published over 45 books of fiction and poetry. His newest novel, Cock-a-Hoop, is from Whiskey Tit. He also wrote the screenplay for We Go On, which won The Memphis Film Prize in 2017. With his wife he runs Burke’s Book Store (est. 1875) in Memphis.