Damon Hubbs

Job Requirement

by Damon Hubbs

the guy my wife hired to do the job sat in his van—

Heating & Sons, a white number with rust creeping

the wheel well like phlox —fucking around on his

phone and watching the neighbor’s daughter do

cartwheels in the yard. The daughter has really

grown up this summer so I can understand his

interest. The guy in the van doesn’t know I’m

watching him from my desk on the second floor

but I’m pretty sure my neighbor has caught me

watching his hot little daughter too, a blossom

in our princedom by the sea where watching is

a neighborhood event like a block party or school

raffle or a Saturday bake sale for Mrs. McKnight’s

cancer recurrence. The doorbell finally rings around

10:20 AM and when I open the door I think to myself

really, a guy like this can’t fill the job requirement.

And I’m right. As soon as he reaches into his tool

bag for the taser and lead pipe I’ve got him on the

living room floor half-choked out. In hindsight,

tenderizing his frontal lobe with a marble ashtray

might have been too much. But my wife loved

that ashtray. It used to be shaped like a turtle.

Year of the Rabbit

by Damon Hubbs

rival

dragons

dance

& burn

down

Hatseller

St., chasing

a rabbit

with a strong jaw

& a foot

like a gun

that doesn’t jam

I watch

fireworks

split-

screen

the midnight

marquee

try to

work

the angles

on the best way

to cheat

fate

Marathon Key

by Damon Hubbs

from the back cabana

the sun drops like a doomed voyage

by balloon

we disrupt leisure

with danger

on the edge of the continent

salvage work, really

but who owes what

to whom

autopsying in the glare

nothing connects,

it coincides

a bellwether

for the imps & iguanas

to hold high carnival

Pretzels

by Damon Hubbs

eight yrs old & hawking pretzels

on the corner of Aldine St

for his father, The Roofer

pretzels the watchword for tickets

to Newark’s East Ward street races,

The Roofer the guy who fixes those races

father liked a straight shot

never drive a crooked road, he’d say

little good it did

he ended up touge

like sourdough in a trash

compactor in Little Rhody

Times Argus

by Damon Hubbs

the paper isn’t the hundred-eyed

Greek giant its name suggests

and that’s how Jimmy

got away with it for so long

he’d worked the sports beat for years

covering Double-A games

down at Damaschke Field.

Jimmy knew the park well

he knew where the high school girls

got picked up for soccer practice and

how long it took their parents to get there.

Jimmy knew the way Umbros fit the leg

the touch

the dribble

pink high gloss and matte

rubbing the sheer afternoon sunlight

he knew if one

of the girls walked home alone

backpack over her shoulder

taking the shortcut

to a cold

mutilated mattress

in a dark, locked

room

Damon Hubbs: film & art lover / pie bird collector / author of the chapbook The Day Sharks Walk on Land (Alien Buddha Press). His second chapbook, Charm of Difference, is forthcoming in 2024 (Back Room Poetry). Recent poems have been featured in South Broadway Press, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Fixator Press, Otoliths, Apocalypse Confidential, and Book of Matches. He lives in New England. @damon_hubs