a bumblebee
bounces
off the office
window by my
desk
tapping the glass
with a small
soft thud
silhouetted
against the sky
the bee
resembles a flying
black thumb
two hundred
feet above the street
zagging cloudward
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
do you have a dollar?
i was there fifty-six fucking
fifty-six fucking days and sister julia
pissed me off
could i have a dollar?
i ain’t doing anything
i’m a viking bitch
a viking bitch from hell
am i registered to vote?
i’m a viking bitch from hell
my cigarette broke
could somebody please have a cigarette?
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“I think of all suicide bombers as children, though most of them are considerably past the age of twelve. Terrorism implies, to me, a childlike singularity, a capacity for dividing the world into good and evil, and a disregard for other lives—an almost conceptual inability to fully acknowledge the lives of other people. Children are cruel—or, more accurately, unempathic—in a way most adults are not. Just spend an hour on a crowded playground.” – Michael Cunningham (interviewed by Sarah Anne Johnson in Close-up: Characterization)