Welcome to “Poetry at The Arts Fuse.” A new poem every Thursday

WALLER STREET

Malnourished
I get pumped by In Utero
& show up to the skatepark
limping after icing my ankle from
A frontside disaster
I got interviewed for four hours
& brought tons of strangers
into the situation. Emmy is
teaching children to skate
& had the sickest slappies
I gave her my Cleopatra mirror
caught at Mardi Gras. I caught
Nico’s board before it hit the curb
They took pictures of my rose
gold nails and rings. I felt like
Frank Costello in court on camera

Micah Ballard is the author of over a dozen books of poetry including Busy Secret (FMSBW),Waifs and Strays (City Lights Books), Afterlives (Bootstrap Press), The Michaux Notebook (FMSBW), Parish Krewes (Bootstrap Press),, Selected Prose, 2008-19 (Blue Press), Evangeline Downs (Ugly Duckling Presse), Daily Vigs (Bird & Beckett Books), Vesper Chimes (Gas Meter), and Negative Capability in the Verse of John Wieners (Bootstrap Press). He lives in San Francisco with poet Sunnylyn Thibodeaux and their daughter Lorca