Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Viva la Revoluciόn!

He is always writing me about the revolution
that is coming.


A great realization and reckoning.


All I see are people buying grapes
and driving badly.


The toilet still needs a plunger
the shower curtain is torn
and mouldy.


The churches fill
as the wallets empty.


The prayer bank is full
when the piggy bank
is not.


I understand. I understand.


This is checkers,
not chess.


A woman gets out of her tan truck
out front the drug house across the street.


She is dressed in green lumberjack
and blue jeans.


Looks very fidgety,
frail as fine
china.


She stumbles across the lawn
over a cat
stealthily hunting something
in the garden.


She has come for her fix,
not revolution,
but I can’t tell my pen pal quack
that.


His letters are so passionate
so assured:


THE REVOLUTION IS COMING!
THE REVOLUTION IS COMING!


I hope for his sake
that it does come.


I know how disappointed I am
when there’s nothing
in the mail.