Their bodies were made of time, like ours. And time Will neither be fooled by fame nor bullied by Tough bluff or bellicosity: No dime Novel tale will slow time's velocity. A bankrupt legend, recently married, But living alone, he was a gunman, worn Down, eyesight lost to syphilis. Buried, He lived: Into myth's afterlife he was born. A hooker and a drunk, she was a youth When they met and she fell in (unrequited) Love. Though rough-mannered as a mine, miner uncouth As a pimp, she nursed the smallpox-infected. In sunny August, their death month, we read Their markers — all that's left of the famous dead. Reprinted with permission from Briar Cliff Review Copyright © by Clif Mason

KWIK SHOP EPIPHANY by Clif Mason

Night came, a wounded bat into the oil- Stained parking lot of the Kwik Shop, fell among The styrofoam drink-cups, and for all its toil Could not rise once more on its hairy wings. As I pumped gas into my car's ever- Famished tank, kids sat on the hoods of half A dozen cars, smoking, laughing, never Once doubting this muggy moment was lie. Their radios black-jacked the air with bass And rapping rhymes fell, bleeding, to their knees. One kid said he'd kick another kid's ass If he saw him. His girlfriend smiled, said, "Please." I washed my buggy windows, headlights, paid. Was it of such small deaths our days were made? Reprinted with permission from Wind Magazine Copyright © 19 by Clif Mason

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