Rick 

Walking past the police station next to the liberal church
Rick wishes he’d gotten that ACAB tattoo on his finger
Or had bricks to hurl through all windows 
In an occupied country, a fortified town 
Let the venom out 
Stir the mess up to the surface 
There’d be something alive in the facture 
Body syrup 
He doesn’t know much beyond that 

* 

Aunt BJ, preserver 
Objects to the new 
Condominiums 

Apparently unaware 
She herself is a chrysalis 

Every backyard a template of 
Medieval frankness 

She puts on a CD of sackbuts 
It sounds like a rich lady laughing 
Rick glistens 

*

And what if Rick had had the ACAB tattoo 
Then found himself dating / in love with a Nice Girl
Then found himself meeting Nice Girl’s Fam on Thanksgiving
Nice Father passing the cranberry sauce 
Espies th’ lamentable tat on Rick’s finger 

What’s that? says the Nice Dad 
I g o t i t a l o n g t i m e a g o (Rick’s excuse) 
(Didn’t matter) 
My kid brother’s a cop, the Nice Dad proclaims
And my dad, and my uncle 
I myself am an honorary deputy 

The rest of dinner is awkward 
And later Nice Dad launches an online petition for Rick’s removal
Save my daughter from Pinko Cop Hater ! 
Let her find Mr Nice Guy ! 
Let Chipotle cater their wedding ! 

The campaign description quotes Robert Bly 
On the crisis of masculinity in American life 
And though no one online or in real life knows Rick
The petition gets 333.3 million signatures 

* 

Rick tries reading Mao 
The guy makes war seem easy 
Rick yawns and a country falls out 
People look up expectantly 
Rick says Let’s not rush this 
It’s not my first rodeo 
Your first what? says a citizen 
There’s no need to get testy 
Nobody’s dead yet 
That isn’t true 
They told us you’d be better looking 
Or at least more compelling 
You don’t even have one good quality 

* 

Sometimes in small apartments 
A middle-class web designer 
Intentionally avoids the online department store 
Where he would die 

The Designer’s lived here for years 
Overlooking new things 
Tablets and fitbits, LEED-certified districts 
Stabbing the air in their gullies

Now they’re riding the train 
The middle-class web designer 
Happened to sit next to Rick 
On the new tracks dividing the superfund site 

Looking up from their inboxes 
Floods, endless war, realtors 
Squashing NIMBYs into modest one-bedrooms
With Google Street Views of meridians 

The Designer asks if Rick’s a visitor
No? Then you understand, he says 
I’m so humbled to see all this progress
I hate sitting in traffic more than anything 

* 

Rick goes for a walk 
Evening sheds ultraviolet 

He passes a dazed woman 
Asking Hello 
Are we standing around 
A bad smell 
Shredded head 

On a sidewalk alongside the camps 
Broken sheets 

Rick winces, knowing 
Someday she’ll be right 
They’ll have no other choice 
But to cut till it’s skeletal 
Scour and flay 

She says Hi 
Is this paradise 
Do you speak 
Terror

Jack Chelgren is a writer from Seattle now living in Chicago. Occasional tweets @thelonguepuree.