No Delivery

The waitress looks like the one who served him in college
at a little KC pizza place built in the shell of a former Dairy Queen.
It was run by three guys who said they were Bolivian, and brothers.
The pizza was good and cheap.
But then they got busted for cocaine distribution.
That was the secret of their success.
It used to be you could tell a waitress that she reminds you
of somebody and she might be flattered.
Now he does not dare.
Since the surgery, since they removed his eye.
The pizza place reopened. The pizza tasted cheap.
They didn’t have that drug money to buy the good cheese.
It is hard to do anything without the good cheese.
It is hard to do anything when they stare at where the eye should be.
Like a car with one headlight.
He doesn’t want to be a fucking pirate.

Rick Christiansen is a former corporate executive, stand-up comedian, actor and director. His work is published or forthcoming in many journals and publications. His first full-length collection, Bone Fragments, was published this January by Spartan Press.   He is the co-host of SpoFest, a member of The Writer’s Place and a member of The St. Louis Writers Guild.  He lives in Missouri near his fiancé and eight grandchildren.