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Overloading the Machine

Tender

A farce, which was this hemophiliac doorbell
stopped in its tracks, that is their blessed glistening
meanness, like tumblers to a toddler

a ritual was something else
nothing, no circumlocution, no zeronones
a one pain above or a waiting design

its a range, it introduced the l to the l
and made its point, systematically
within a chart there is a folder

inside all this and unusual
an echo the ear can't wrap, won't
cling, not unavailable in not selling

not absent and not adorned
the three-legged stool, not unheard
but ill-advised, and often.

We were young and our happiness dazzled us with its strength. But there was also a terrible betrayal that lay within me like a Merle Haggard song at a French restaurant. [...] I could not tell the girl about the woman of the tollway, of her milk white BMW and her Jordache smile. There had been a fight. I had punched her boyfriend, who fought the mechanical bulls. Everyone told him, "You ride the bull, senor. You do not fight it." But he was lean and tough like a bad rib-eye and he fought the bull. And then he fought me. And when we finished there were no winners, just men doing what men must do. [...] "Stop the car," the girl said. There was a look of terrible sadness in her eyes. She knew about the woman of the tollway. I knew not how. I started to speak, but she raised an arm and spoke with a quiet and peace I will never forget. "I do not ask for whom's the tollway belle," she said, "the tollway belle's for thee." The next morning our youth was a memory, and our happiness was a lie. Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila, I thought as I poured whiskey onto my granola and faced a new day.

-- Peter Applebome, International Imitation Hemingway Competition