5 (little loser)
Nobody loves me like my little loser.
She would lift me, love me were I less man
than the clenched fist and busted-up bruiser
and tearless deaf-mute Führer that I am.
She would love me if I let the luckless
in, let the little villain believe in
all the suicidal wreckers of his
rotten youth (and onetime glimpse of freedom).
Let the backhand swing and the frying pan
break the window and settle in the trash—
two stories thick with black bags and old cans—
that's there at the bottom of the airshaft.
My little loser doesn't ask for much:
just to love me until I self-destruct.
first published in the anthology Devouring the Green (Jaded Ibis, 2015)