Super Bonus Wednesday

Scylla

 

I like this one.  Just the right balance of menace and food and paranoia.

 

Torn between the Scylla Salad and Charybdis Pesto

  Fleeing orange acid
  riptides, razor clam surf
  punks, ankle grabbing sand hands,
  swept onto the Dunes of the Accountants.

  Number crunchers on steroids
  swinging rolling pins with
  hands as big as your fist
  sport t shirts that beckon
  Kiss Me I'm Symbionese.

  Chased, bludgeoned into a run down restaurant
  Pasta Agonistes  
  I stumble I circle the salad bar,
  I just can't take any more.
  Bones shattered, a bag of pretzel sticks,
  Humiliated Uncle I pronounce.

  In a Handi Wipe moment it's shopping mall new,
  bursting with college kid wait people
  reenacting my torment with souvenir
  rolling pins for the
  families of threes ordering dinner:
  "Does the Linguini Achilles come in a child's portion?"

 

© The Portland Review, Vol. 36, No. 2, April 1990