"lazy summer living" by Soubhik Barari

the uptown east coast summer mystique,
easy to catch on day like this.

the street corner antics,
the cardboard boxes of hardcover Hardy Boys
on pattered middle class driveways.

the IBMs and unused floppy disks for sale
across from just-opened Blockbusters and Old Country Buffets,
next to Breigh's handmade lemonade
and Stacy's curbside ice cream.

I saw a man get shot next to Roger's barber shop,
and a concrete paintjob of his stomach and brains.

I remember the way everyone ducked on impact
much in the way that you jolt in a nightmare of falling down stairs
or down elevators.

a dying Mona Lisa,
his yellow-brimmed eyes looked away
no matter what angle you came at him.

his sighing escape wound beckoned for my hand
but I held my feet where they were,
hoping he'd pass already so I could too.

as his facial slabs comfortably dipped back into his jawbone,
for a second, I thought he was giving way to a smile
or a half-muted scream,
but no one noticed the
the red stripe on Roger's pole
as it began spinning in the opposite direction.