Whispers
it’s the whispers that are really worse and more subtly vicious in the long run our old tapes run in the background staticky and overplayed soft echoes of ridicule of shame and fear we float in this sound like an ocean of amniotic fluid we’re swaddled by layers of messages like warm blankets like straitjackets there’s a homeless guy who wanders into the coffee shop sometimes early in the morning he sits in the corner whispering, mumbling if he started screaming they’d throw him out, but no— he just mutters softly to himself as I ignore him with one ear and listen with the other some days I put ear plugs in that takes care of him at least
Smile
on the wall behind the counter of the corner store is a sign, a photo of a model employee. red arrows point to the important things—the proper shirt, with corporate logo. name tag. hat. smile. the poor girl filling vats of coffee at 4:30 a.m., who’s been stuck here since 11 p.m. yesterday, who’s dealt with the obnoxious drunks, the mad homeless, and the just plain rude mass of humanity, a parade of horrible faces and souls all night long, has her shirt, her name tag, her hat. but she ain’t smiling. and if she was, I’d assume she’d gone mad herself, and make a phone call. but really, why do they hang a sign like that in public view? you just know some asshole will see that, point to it, and say— “hey! where’s your smile?” whoever he is, he oughta be killed.
Brian Rihlmann was born in New Jersey and currently resides in Reno, Nevada. He writes free verse poetry, and has been published in The Blue Nib, The American Journal of Poetry, Cajun Mutt Press, The Rye Whiskey Review, and others. His first poetry collection, “Ordinary Trauma,” (2019) was published by Alien Buddha Press.