Tom

Birch Wiley

In the seventies, Tom
got work at the Dr. Bronner’s
factory in Dallas.
He drove home Fridays with
the ounce he’d split with the
buddies
he followed down
from Jersey. Once, lights
went up in the rearview.
The Texas State Trooper
approached the driver’s side, gun
drawn. While Tom shat
himself on the roadside,
ounce tucked frantically
under the passenger’s seat, the cop’s
flashlight nosed
into the glove compartment,
door pockets. When the trooper
asked my father, not yet
my father, where he kept
his gun, Tom almost laughed,
thought better of it. The cop
chuckled, though, shook
his pink skull,
clapped Tom’s shoulder.

‡‡

BIRCH WILEY is a transsexual writer living in New York. Their work can be found in Pleiades, Voicemail Poems, and Querencia Quarterly, among others. Their debut collection, Mythweaver, was published by new words {press}. You can learn more about them at birchwiley.com.