| SHOULDER TO STONE by Timothy Rodriguez Double-thinkers open the window to flee this worthless limbo which goes wanting even though Understanding of right or wrong actually stood its ground while all around sat among mumbles on steps and stoops in hopes of being cast as an anyhow.You claim you are too wise even for comfort even though you knew what you intended to do—keep quiet, shy away, disappear while others rushed to the ramparts.O, coward, and a fraud to be one with any belief while flitting from cause to a girl with a joint. If heroin made you an addict a user you already are declaring to all one thing and secretly undoing another in the shadows. You now refuse to look into any mirror, preferring the expanse of a window where every thing is possible but you. Shoulder to Stonehe waits, fingertips fitfully filing against thumb’s thickness occasionally brushing the hem of his rented mourning suit, his feet unable to tap, trapped stiff in patent leather whose luster dims in the paschal nocturnal as the hours stretch He tells himself there is no serum in love’s lost chance but quite possibly in the long advent of blame that rinses out loss in a four-week cycle until cleansed of what He wasn’t sure happened when He put shoulder to stone just the other Sunday and rolled back that which was thrice his size About the Author:  Timothy L Rodriguez has published in English and Spanish. His novel—Guess Who Holds Thee?—is available on Amazon. His fiction and poems have appeared in over a dozen national and international journals including New London Writers (UK), honorable mention in international short story competition sponsored by The Writer’s Drawer (Israel), Main Street Rag and Heyday Magazine and Stoneboat Literary Journal (2017 Pushcart nomination). His essay The Problem Now will appear in the 5th edition of New Theory and his poem “Mid the Muster on Main” will appear in the Spring issue of AMP by Hofstra University. His poem “Finish It” will appear in the next issue of The Ibis Head Review. |