Michael Karl (Ritchie)

Teaching in Arkansas 

Stuck in my windshield wipers, dissolving
under the drizzle, what I at first took
to be another religious flyer

was instead my head carefully cut out
and scotch-taped to a male torso with an
uncircumcised erect penis. Given

the size of his dick, I wasn't sure if
I should have been offended or pleased. Still,
it wasn't as bad as having a steel

garbage can lid hurled through the windshield,
or the time I found my tires slashed after
an all-night student party next door. Cops,

when they learned I was a teacher, smiled and
wrote it off as a harmless prank. Getting
even is as Arkansan as bearing

a grudge or making harassing phone
calls. With such affliction, can a random
shooting be far behind? It's no joke that

some stalker's paranoia can poison
teaching by magnifying newspaper
dots of my cropped face into black obits.
 

(Delores Gray)