firenze sat (128)I was in Walmart yesterday, swung around the end of one aisle where a five-foot-high cardboard-display edge stuck out about eight inches and, like an old fuck, caught it with my chest. Back up slightly, proceed on toward the Life Savers.  Halfway up the aisle (around the Life Savers) this black guy, twenty-five-ish, slightest smile with eyes, says, “I was the only one who saw that.”

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Steven Barthelme‘s collection of essays, The Early Posthumous Work, was issued last year by Red Hen Press, Los Angeles.

Photo by Dinty W. Moore