Improv 1, Week 6

Im prov

David Bottoms

Shooting Rats at the Bibb County Dump

Loaded on beer and whiskey, we ride

to the dump in carloads

to turn our headlights across the wasted field,

freeze the startled eyes of rats against mounds of rubbish.

Shot in the head, they jump only once, lie still

like dead beer cans.

Shot in the gut or rump, they writhe and try to burrow

into garbage, hide in old truck tires,

rusty oil drums, cardboard boxes scattered across the mounds,

or else drag themselves on forelegs across our beams of light

toward the darkness at the edge of the dump.

It’s the light they believe kills.

We drink and load again, let them crawl

for all they’re worth into the darkness we’re headed for.

We Pre game at the free house of the night:

Olde English and Marlboro Reds paper bag

wo(man)-child's better reasoning.

We galloped grasping the innards

of Broadways Iron Horse.

Advised not to, dubbed rebels

lean back flaunting the baby hairs

on their neck; signaling the sexual

availability that 18 brought,

wanting an onlooker

to answer. The subway doors

just slide,where voyeurs meet subjects

of unknown desire like conductors

following the same train route everyday.

Water balloons fell where I walked

just before arriving at the apartment.

Too smashed, the kids tolerated

jovial merry making, themselves

$3750 worth therapy consulted scholars

stuck face first in a bucket of

molasses

like aint it sweet.

I just started riffin on this Bottom piece, some of this may be "internalized," all comments greatly appreciated and wanted.