GULP
here they come,
closing in
where’s my key
it’s not that
i’m afraid
not that
i fear their punches,
or the cut of their knives
their requests for money
or demands for my wallet
it’s not that
i fear looking them in the eyes
and saying
this is how it is
i don’t have any change
i only carry my platinum amex
no
it’s just that
i don’t want to
put down my
big gulp
Eric's YouTube video reading of "Gulp":
Subscribe and turn on Notifications for Channel 52.
Eric confesses: "'Gulp' is more about the anticipation of crime than its occurrence, inspired by that recurring city situation of being approached for money. At the gas pump, outside convenient stores, in the streets, time and time again a person or small group of people approach. The feeling is multifaceted: fear that the request may spill into violent demand; guilt if the request hits just right but you don't have cash on hand. And overshadowing it all: the crime that someone needs to ask in the first place."
ERIC D. GOODMAN is author of The Color of Jadeite (Loyola University’s Apprentice House Press, 2020), Setting the Family Free (Apprentice House Press, 2019), Womb: a novel in utero (Merge Publishing, 2017), Tracks: A Novel in Stories (Atticus, 2011), and Flightless Goose (Writer's Lair, 2008) as well as the forthcoming Wrecks and Ruins.
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