In the water left from the waitress' rag,
I made James' face:
pinched salt for the scar
below the eyebrow,
a fleck of pepper for a freckle,
bent straw for the bridge of the nose.
The trouble with my over-easy eggs
was their thin skins broke
with a touch of a butter knife.
The trouble with my coffee
was it took the cream and changed.
The trouble with me is I can arrange
three words however I please: this
isn't it
It isn't this.
Isn't it this?
Isn't this it?
Keith Leonard is the author of Still, the Shore (YesYes Books), a chapbook of poems. He has held scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and Indiana University, where he received his MFA. Keith’s poems appeared recently in Memorious, Mid-American Review, Southern Indiana Review, and elsewhere.
