Did It Have Pockets?

driving through Iowa I see a roadkill kangaroo
on the shoulder of the two-lane highway
between two towns with Dollar General stores
doubling as community and cultural hubs

my mind lags behind the car’s miles
despite the pouch being obscured
Z-shaped legs and a tail
were unmistakable to my eyes

I begin to question males
unable to recall if they have pouches
or if their compartmentalization
remains purely mental

I pull into the Dollar General
scan the shelves 
for a World Book Encyclopedia

Self-Driving Cars

Teenage stoners park too far from the curb
just outside my house. I consider myself
an excellent parker, and it stuns me,
this audacious act of defiance.
Drawing attention to yourself
seems the antithesis of the paranoia
I always felt when high.

Their faces move in all directions
blurring as they look from each other
to the orange tabby just now jumping
onto the hood of their Dodge Neon.
Sirens sound up the block, but the squad
car never materializes. Never lights the cherries.
Never drags these two knuckleheads out by the scalp
through their cracked windows and into the street
for the ass-beating they are begging for,
so I do it. 





Chris Dolan graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in English and works in the automotive industry. He is angry about the nitrate levels in Iowa’s drinking water. Reader at Black Fox Literary Magazine and Flash Fiction Magazine. Chris’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Strange Horizons, Maudlin House, and The Disappointed Housewife.

Bluesky