NEW POETRY

Should I have expected to get

the Andrew Jacksons back from those

requesting my generosity on dark

Saturday nights upon unpeopled streets

and perhaps danger too lightly noted

in pride of bodily strength and city smarts

not smart enough to sense the scam

so still not seeing those twenties even

giving my address and a decade and more

for the repayment and confirmation

of good faith on the parts of those blank

middle-agers mostly likely in opiate need

greater than mine for the bills

long transmuted to magic killing pills

no longer possible, anyway, to collect

on the debt, so I settle for everlasting I.O.U.s.

John Zedolik is an adjunct English professor at Chatham University and Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and has published poems in such journals as Abbey, The Bangalore Review (IND), Commonweal, FreeXpresSion (AUS), Orbis (UK), Paperplates (CAN), Poem, Poetry Salzburg Review (AUT), Transom, Writer’s Block (NED), and in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. His full-length collections include Salient Points and Sharp Angles (WordTech Editions), When the Spirit Moves Me (Wipf & Stock), Mother Mourning, The Ramifications (Wipf & Stock), Lovers’ Progress (Wipf & Stock), and Triple Muse (Wipf & Stock). All these collections are available on Amazon.