Fortune Cookies: Poems by Andrew Cox

The Baby in the Back Seat

I am the baby in the back seat. That's my parents in the front and this is our rickety car. My mom is white and plump. My dad is black and thin. I am somewhere in between and though I have traveled with these two for only a short while, I am losing all respect for them and wish them gone. I can only hope someday I'll learn to drive and leave these two behind.

***

Objects such as funky felt hats come to rest on the heads of 15 year-old girls who pull them down over their eyes as they smoke at bus stops waiting for a ride to school. To look at them is to look at a deeply beautiful bruise.

***

I am old. Now I am part of the background noise through which the young move. But I do not lament. Every so often those who are not old hear a whisper of indescribable attraction and are drawn off the sidewalk just as the light turns green and the traffic jerks into the intersection.

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