CRAYONS FOR DESSERT
by Kevin Ridgeway
John commands everyone’s
attention when he sings a
Smokey Robinson tune,
a long strand of drool hanging
from his outstretched, quivering
bottom lip that our mental health
counselor wipes off with the
torn first page of a brochure
on sexually transmitted diseases,
just as a dazed Haitian man
who brought a Boys II Men
album to our post-lunchtime
creative expressions group
forms a gun with his hand
and pretends to shoot himself,
which ignites a giggle fit in
the schizophrenic waiting room
bingo champion next to me
that sounds like a hundred
Pillsbury Doughboys trapped
inside of a blender. The
hypnotic leather jowls
of an old, washed up
beauty queen graze
the cardboard ruins
of a cup of noodle soup
box that she vandalizes
with her chicken scratch
notes of our biweekly
meetings in a crayon
the color of an artificial
Velveeta sunrise that
she slowly begins to
munch on, our counselor
oblivious as she whispers
into the electric razor
buzz shock of her newest
cell phone, aggravating
the side effects of our
medications, our mouths
opened wide so they
could be sure we didn’t
cheek our pills.
Originally Published in Chiron Review
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