THE MAN WHO SLEEPS IN THE BED NEXT TO ME
My roommate looks like a wrinkled,
glazed-over Stimpson J. Cat at dusk
but transforms into a hyper confident,
thieving upright Yogi Bear at dawn
when I let him bum a cigarette. He
lights it, jabbering my ears off about
how cool it would be if they blasted
Snoop Dog at Knott's Berry Farm
and the time he made out with a girl
in one of the caves on Disneyland's
Tom Sawyer's Island behind a nighttime
performance of Fantasia, when they
witnessed a stabbing while scaling
a phony cavern. He tells me he caught
the guy who did it, and Mickey Mouse
presented him with a cartoon Excalibur.
He tells me the television is talking
to him, and that's the only word of his
that I believe at this point. I wonder
what my roommate dreams about,
it must be better than anything old
Walt could produce on an acid trip.
He's a dog on its birthday that doesn't
know it's his birthday, but I do. I don
his head with a party hat while he tries
to gnaw at it and I snap a photograph
before giving him another special treat.
Kevin Ridgeway's books include Too Young to Know (Stubborn Mule Press) and Invasion of the Shadow People (Luchador Press). Recent work has appeared in The Paterson Literary Review, Slipstream, Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, San Pedro River Review, Main Street Rag, Trailer Park Quarterly and Beat Not Beat: An Anthology of California Poets Screwing on the Beat and Post-Beat Tradition (Moon Tide Press). A Puschart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, he lives and writes in Long Beach, CA.