Eric D. Goodman

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.