We called the man Habib, called the store Habib’s.
We’d spent all our quarters playing that X-Men game.
Out of money, exiled to the ballfields on the Rio de Flag.
Rio? A drainage ditch where the older kids jumped mountain bikes.
With your glasses I compressed the sun to a laser’s point.
The oil-slicked beetle smoked from the shell.
Smell like summer-ennui and loose pennies,
like waiting to hear the rattling engine of that old truck
shifting gears. My father on his way to shout, “Danny, let’s roll!”
I smell that truck. Decaying upholstery and dust. Dad
stopping at Habib’s to get a road Beck’s telling me to stop
calling him Habib. Later We’d learn his name was Saied.
The store was a Circle-K. Later we’d learn to steal
Hustlers and Cigarettes from Habib. You distract him, pay with loose change.
Later, he’d sell us cigs without checking for I.D. Then beer.
Later, after 9/11, Saied would have his windows broken,
and broken, and broken until he left town.
A Long Memory Which Begins in 1995
America, beer, bees, bird, birds, bummer, cars, coffee, death, desert, desperate, desperation, discomfort, drink, drugs, drugs and alcohol, drunk, ease, fallout, food, happiness, home, hope, humans, jail, kicked out, kids, lessons, love, lovers, lust, man, men, messy, naked, nature, nude, object, one night stand, our time, our town, peace, people, poem, Poems, poet, poetry, poets, power, punk, punk rock, river, sadness, scorpions, secrets, sex, shit, small towns, spiders, suicide, symbols, the west, time, truth, voyeur, vulnerability, vulnerable, war, work, workers, working, writing
About Me
A poet-chef living in Denver, Co. I use the orange Aquafresh toothpaste, off brand mouthwash, and those little floss picks.
Daniel E Haislet 
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