Skip
Skip’s gotta be dead by now
or he’s twelve-steppin’,
talking in cliches,
jacking himself up so much
on church basement coffee that
a good drunk is the only
thing to bring him down.
He owned the Flamingo Motel
a hundred years ago, out there
on Marathon Key.
Rooms half the price of
Key West’s bedbug palaces.
I asked Skip for a wake-up call
and he said, “We don’t do that
but I’ll kick your door real hard.”
And he did. Whatever his faults
and excesses, the man delivered
on a promise.
or he’s twelve-steppin’,
talking in cliches,
jacking himself up so much
on church basement coffee that
a good drunk is the only
thing to bring him down.
He owned the Flamingo Motel
a hundred years ago, out there
on Marathon Key.
Rooms half the price of
Key West’s bedbug palaces.
I asked Skip for a wake-up call
and he said, “We don’t do that
but I’ll kick your door real hard.”
And he did. Whatever his faults
and excesses, the man delivered
on a promise.
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Robert L. PenickThe poetry and prose of Robert L. Penick have appeared in well over 100 different literary journals, including The Hudson Review, North American Review, Plainsongs, and Oxford Magazine. The Art of Mercy: New and Selected Poems is now available from Hohm Press, and more of his work can be found at theartofmercy.net.
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