the hallway but I didn’t mind cause whenever she
sent me outside I went lookin’ for tit behind the
bricks with Catherine and I’ll tell you what I’d find
I’d find tit I’d find Catherine
The thing is that Catherine had been with Bobby
since we was little but god and Bobby’d been
bothering me lately anyway I could take a beating
back then I already been hit with everything
from my mother’s comb to my daddy’s headstone
Overgrown even though we cleaned it every xmas
but I don’t know for what it’s not like he ever was
any good to us he’s still buried where Bobby n me
after we made amends would go to smoke at the
far end we’d come in over the fence. Catherine’s
dress was over her head. Bobby’s dead. I was on
the couch eating crumbs off my t-shirt when Cathy
came in all wrinkled up saying we need to talk I shut
the tv off even though The Phils were set up to win
it all she said my mother called it’s years since the
schoolyard but maybe I’m here now behind the
bricks because it makes me sick to think about the
telephone cord around his neck in his mother’s
kitchen I know it ain’t me and the Mrs why he did it
but it seems too often that there’s no option for god
or Bobby or daddy or Cathy or me
and as I watch her leave the living
room to cry alone with a cigarette
in the sunroom I think maybe this
really is it maybe this is all you get
and then she took her dick out
I knew there was no one watching
except the raccoons coming up from
the sewer and I was grateful for those
backroad streetlights grateful again
when she reached for me took my fingers
and put ‘em where she wanted ‘em
rubbed me over my pants with her eyes
in the rearview, scanning passing traffic at
each end until her head fell back and her
lids flickered ‘til she came in my hand
telling me I’m bad then we smoked
cigarettes and I made her laugh
you gotta hurt, right? But what good is praise
when it changes the way you pray? What good
is aching anyway, I said, what good is god
damn anything? Goddammit, Alizé, He said to me
as I made my way off stage, it should be
hungover morning sex, it should be
fucking through headaches and
bad breath, depth, in bed with somebody
decent. But it’s this, it’s always this
strip club, I cut in, so what, so sometimes you gotta
use your pussy to feed your kids. Stage rent and
ATMs, working for 1’s, 20’s & 50’s, considering
sin, as in discussing, with another broken spirit
cut up by government, drugs, and other people’s
money. Please, I sat on his lap, you call this pleasure?
Pussy ain’t heaven. Money ain’t treasure. You can’t
cover sweat with Piña Colada body spray. You can’t
spell yes with letters, only pressure. Let’s leave
I said, while there’s still some light left
outside. But, Alizé, baby, it’s almost Sunday. Not
yet, I said. Don’t look up but, someone’s watching us.
Come close. Come into me and whisper. Tell me
as you use my body if I’ve been good to you.
Tell me if the moon does something beautiful.
If it shines or if it doesn’t shine or if its color is
unusual. Kiss me between my chin and cheek
or lick my tits and broken teeth,
pay me, break me
in the back room,
I’ll do it over your pants
in the parking lot, push me
on my knees, leave me
naked in the front seat.
Do whatever you want with me.
Do you wanna? Do you, daddy?
Can you? If you dance you gotta live
with the risk and with consequence, yeah? Can you?
Look at me. Look at me, daddy. Come on, sing
with me, Sunday rester. You know the words. Don’t
worry about tomorrow. Come on, daddy. Come
on, it’s futile but let’s do it anyway. Anyway—
—It’s done. Now that you’re thinking clearly, you
should know, there’s a disease going around
the locker room. There’s a tree, so to speak,
out of which we all grow, and, as you well know,
it’s in bad, bad shape, but, I’m okay. Look away
as I crawl on my hands to gather your cash. Open
the electricity between me and the trees, please.
Or can you only see me if I’m on my knees? Just,
just do whatever you want with me. Just leave me be.
[POETRY]
[08/13/25]
[08/13/25]
TONY GODINO has published short fiction with Isele Magazine and poetry with Olney, Literary Hatchet, Museum of Americana and others. He is from Scranton, Pennsylvania and considers the 2022 MLS Cup to be the greatest heartbreak of his entire life. He can be found on Instagram here: @TonyGodinoDied.