Bob Lucky

On Neighborliness

Walking down the street trying not to look like a pervert while adjusting my new underwear so that both testicles are comfortably nestled, I look across the street and see an old woman with a basket of folded laundry at her feet and a pink plastic rose clasped between her teeth as if she were a pirate boarding a ship rather than someone searching for a key in her apron. A woman pushing a shopping cart full of folded cardboard boxes turns the corner, spits in the middle of the sidewalk, and waves at someone behind me. I turn to see an old man watching his dog plop a turd that he has no intention of picking up even if he could bend over that far. He looks at me and shakes his head. I take my hand out of my pants and wave.

spring thaw
heads sprout
out of windows

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About the Author

Bob Lucky is the author most recently of My Thology: Not Always True But Always Truth (Cyberwit, 2019) and the chapbook Conversation Starters in a Language No One Speaks (SurVision Books, 2018), which was a winner of the James Tate Poetry Prize in 2018. Lucky lives in Portugal, where he is working his way through all the regional cheeses and wines.

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