ACCIDENT STATEMENT
I ordered a vegetable burrito with no beans.
She asks, “just the rice?” I say yeah, meaning
a vegetable burrito with everything except beans.
But they kept passing my sad, naked burrito down the line,
with only rice inside.
I had to tell the lady who adds the guacamole
that I wanted a vegetable burrito
so she could add the squash and red peppers - which she did -
and I took it to some empty part of the food court to eat.
It was fine.
However, as I was drinking my soda,
and my intention is not to make you uncomortable,
or get too serious in a poem about a burrito,
but,
it was the last sip of my soda,
you know the bit left between the ice
that you have to slurp up,
well, while I was slurping I remembered my father
playing dueling cowboys with me, at the bus stop,
both of us sticking our thumbs straight up
and our index fingers straight out like guns
and when my bullet landed, through my sites
his hand over his heart
as he went down
and I choked on my soda
like
a sonofabitch
for no reason whatsoever
but some guy,
some dweeb in a golf shirt,
saw me choke,
scowled,
looked away
and had no idea
I had a life before all of this.