The Cough
Hell if I know where it came from.
Maybe I caught it at work,
Or hanging out at the bars too much.
Something has come over me,
Has taken a hold and won’t let up.
Now here I am popping prednisone
Before my morning piss, benzos
Every eight hours,
Washing down horse size doxycycline
With full glasses of water
When the only results I seem to be getting are trips to the bathroom.
I blow into an inhaler for the wheezing
That feels like the devil is whistling Dixie
In my chest. I tell them everything about me
At the urgent care clinic, checking the only two boxes
That pertain to my health. Amlodipine for the hypertension,
Metformin for the borderline diabetes.
Bad blood runs in my family. The nurse pokes and prods
My nose to test me for Covid-19.
The doctor steps in armed in blue, wearing a face shield.
He greets me with a latex gloved knuckle bump.
A series of questions roll off his tongue.
A set of answers push past my lips into unsterile air.
He presses the bell of the stethoscope
At different points in my back as I take deep, labored breaths.
He moves around the front of my chest
Checking for any signs of crackling.
I hope he can do something. I pray he’s the angel
That can kill this devil.
I prepare myself for any blood they may need.
I feel much better than I did Saturday night,
Coughing uncontrollably into my comforter.
Not even the thought of blue eyes could lull me to sleep.
Perhaps this is my punishment for the company I keep,
for all the whisky I drink,
For not introducing enough vitamin-c
Into my diet of fried and fast food.
Has a curse been put on my name?
Who walks around with a doll in my likeness,
pulling at the seams?
Labor Room One
I saw the video about the first trimester
Sitting on top of the VCR.
This was different than snitching on you
For spilling Kool aid on the floor,
For not cleaning out the bathtub.
When the news broke,
It spread across the family like a fever.
I thought our father was going to lock you away
Someplace, cut off from all light.
Instead, he didn’t speak to you for days
Thinking he had lost his little girl.
Mother looked to me as if I had a backpack full of answers.
She shared her fears over grape soda & spiced ham sandwiches.
The Kleenex from crying
Was strewn across rose- pink carpet.
Karen in Queens was the first to be told.
The aunt everyone likes.
I watched your belly balloon
Under MC Hammer and Al B. Sure t-shirts,
Walking the halls of the house with shame in your face.
To think… you would be crowned mother in a matter of months.
Me, an uncle to your first born.
Our Father sat in his dark of disappointment
As mother held your hand through contractions,
I sat outside labor room one.
I sat outside fisting the cushions
Of the chair beneath me.
Hearing your sighs,
Your cries from behind the door.
Teddy stood over you
Waiting for fatherhood.
I didn’t think much of the man
Who knocked up my sister
I use to watch cartoons with,
I use to trade rap tapes with.
Hours later my niece slipped out into this world,
Her face full of life.
When we got home with our crowns,
Mother entered the house with rage
For a husband too angry to hold his granddaughter
She kicked his bedroom door open
Where our father was sleeping to have her say.
I went to bed, happy about the new edition to the family.
Shane Allison
A Chance Meeting
Walking home from a poetry reading one night
It began to rain. I popped the collar
Of my leather jacket up around my neck
As if it would be enough to keep me dry.
I lived in a beat up apartment
On Grove Street. It wasn’t five star,
But was in the village,
Blocks away from the bars
And boyfriend material.
I slept in my room with a butcher knife
Due to the mouse under the stove.
As I walked to dodge pellets of wet,
A man in a chef coat
Sauntered up next to me,
Sheltering us under his umbrella.
These things don’t happen
In my City town of Tallahassee.
He had to be heaven sent.
We exchanged names as if they
Were phone numbers
Written on receipt slips.
He worked at a restaurant
Whose food I couldn’t afford
On a work study salary.
I told him I was a poet
Who exchanged freshly squeezed
Sunshine for Lady Liberty.
Our walk stopped in front of Andy’s Deli
Where I would go for Chicken sandwiches
And Coconut crunch donut delites.
When he pulled the umbrella away,
I could taste the rain on my lips again,
Beads of it sticking to the frames of my glasses.
The face of this angel no longer in focus.
He had a train to Brooklyn to catch,
And I had a kitchen mouse to kill.
Shane Allison has been writing poetry since the age of fifteen, when he would hide off in the library writing sappy love poems about high school crushes. He has gone on to publish poems in a plethora of lit mags and anthologies. He has penned two novels, You’re the One I Want and Harm Done, both published by Simon & Schuster. He is also the author of Slut Machine (Queer Mojo Press), I Want to Eat Chinese Food Off Your Ass (Dumpster Fire Press), and I Remember (Future Tense Book). You will usually find him hiding off in a corner at a nearby Barnes & Noble, composing poems about hot, stroller-pushing DILFS.
