Nicholas Minges
The other night when I was on my way to the restaurant to meet you
I was rudely alerted to the rumbling vibrations of another vehicle
stopping beside me at the intersection, and I looked over and saw the driver,
sunglasses on, hat backwards, and the seat leaned way back and he
lowered his tinted window, and he slacked his jaw, and frothed out a wispy
cloud of white fog that trailed out toward the back window, which had a sticker
on it that read “Dave saves the bass,” illuminated in neon and as I was waiting
for the light to change, for a second, my mind went somewhere else and
I closed my eyes and went with Dave, saw Dave doing chin ups and holding his breath
in his mother’s basement, collecting maps of faraway places known and unknown,
Dave descending into the depths of the earth, scanning the stars and scaling the pyramids,
Dave following dying camels to water, following blind natives through rain forests,
learning new words for snake and danger, biting the heads off of each,
Dave’s eyes at last meeting the castle, Dave slipping past the guards and
navigating the dungeon, banishing the monster with a single word,
claiming his bride who escapes climbing up a lock of his hair,
Dave and the bass pledging themselves to each other forever,
Dave and the bass in a used car lot to chase the shrinking horizon until their tiny hearts explode.
***
Nicholas Minges is currently a senior at Sacramento State University. His poems have been featured in Levee Magazine and The Sierra Journal. He intends to acquire an MFA and is determined to write more.