Timothy O'Keefe

 

Broken Sonnet
Dinner Bell

Men fought
and their wives were steeped in applejack.
The butcher’s hours were 2-5 AM,
when hospital moms zombied in
with semblances
of a girlish smile.
We learned to track
time
in the rusted row of Pontiacs
on yet another lot. 
At 3 PM, the shops closed,
traffic snaked on Highway 10,
and the butcher sniffed a heap of babybacks.
 
So yeah, I wanted
up
and quick.  I’d heard
the single mill sing in its singular stink.
My mother flayed the fat,
tenderized a chewy cut of meat.
A starlane purred, the dealer shook another hand, and I’d think
This is the time for hatchlings.
Time for flies.