Riley’s Plight & Florida Man by Alex Carrigan
Riley’s Plight
For the first time in her young life,
my sister’s dog has to walk across
a bridge.
She survived searching for scraps
on the streets of Mexico,
then soaked up the sunshine
in her neighborhood in Redwood City,
but now she has to strut across
a portion of the Anacostia River.
She’s never been aware she’s been
above the ground, not even when
she was kenneled in the plane’s hold.
The closest to this sensation
was when my sister
carried her out of the airport.
We each take turns carrying the crying child
across the bridge. She can’t tell we’re
laughing as we each feel her racing heartbeat,
laughing as we take pictures of each other,
laughing as she whines and waits for the end.
For the first time in her young life,
my sister’s dog made it across
a bridge.
It was terrifying,
and she probably hopes to
never do it again,
but in about a half hour,
she’ll have to cross it again.
After Thaddeus Rutkowski
Florida Man
An Uber driver in Tampa
drove away before he could pick me up,
even though I was walking to the door.
He claimed his app was messing up and
I had to pay him in cash.
He would drive me over a highway,
and I didn’t care.
I just wanted to get back to my hotel,
and I assumed this was just how
Florida men operated.
On the drive over,
the driver told me a story
about a girl he said was
giving out AIDS like it was candy.
I debated whether I’d survive
jumping out of a car
going 65 MPH.
Maybe that would get me
my very own
Florida Man headline,
despite being from Virginia.
I practically threw my $20 at him
when I arrived at the hotel,
running inside to tell my friend about it.
She told me he was a fake driver,
so the headline read:
“Virginia Man Falls for
Florida Man’s Uber Con.”
It’s not as punchy as Zola’s
Tampa story,
but I think I’ll walk
anywhere I go in Florida.
After Ariel Francisco
“I exiled these poems to my "Retired Poems" folder. These two poems were written as part of an ekphrastic poetry writing challenge I gave myself last year and were abandoned since I wasn't inspired to continue working on them and submit them places.”
Alex Carrigan (he/him; @carriganak) is an editor, poet, and critic from Virginia. He is the author of May All Our Pain Be Champagne: A Collection of Real Housewives Twitter Poetry (Alien Buddha Press, 2022).