After Adrian Matejka
I used to champ candy but now
I dip my hands in gold.
I do not need you.
All I need is clan & tingle.
My acid spit once split stone but now
my dad has cancer & I am dancing backward
into the fishnet prison of my youth.
The coffee has crystallized in its cold cup.
I am not enjoying this joint
between your shoulders.
I used to.
I used to be a thief.
Now I am howling. Now I am speaking directly:
If I met the devil I would not know him.
John Leo’s writing has appeared in Tinderbox Poetry, Entropy, FIVE:2:ONE, and elsewhere. He is the author of two chapbooks: The Long Weekend is Over (CWP Collective Press) and Gulag Picture Radio (Ghost City Press). He is a member of the Poorhouse Collective and co-founder of the reading series Poets Attack! He has an MFA from Butler University. He lives in Indianapolis.