by Wade Bentley
A piece of pin-stripe jostled to the front
Of coffee drunken crowd and checked his watch
And checked the street and thought about the Deal
He’d surely make today-and other things.
Some things like flaxen women easing past
With cotton-candy hips and endless legs,
And some about his wife, who mostly asked
If he was staying lace to pay for things.
And then when he had passed the deli, there
Where Wall Street meets the wharf, he thought again
About his Deal, the Big Deal of his day,
When maybe then his starchy underthings
Would start to crawl, and while the Deal was dealt
He’d smile, and die to pull them out. But then-
Why, who the hell is this that’s died ? He looks
The paper through, and threatens ugly things
To other passing three-piece suits who run
To make the light. And while he waits to WALK
Again, it starts to rain and spots his suit.
He fingers in his pockets lifeless things
And wonders what to do with all the lint.
Wade Bentley graduated from BYU in English this August and is now a graduate student in
English.