Image: Gertrude Greene – Related Forms, 1947

Alyssa Trivett is a wandering soul from the Midwest. When not working two jobs, she listens to music while chirping down coffee and scrawling lines on the back of gas station receipts. Her work has recently appeared at VerseWrights, In Between Hangovers, The Squawk Back, and in the first print issue of Ramingo’s Porch. 

‘The Living Dead’ was previously published in the Fall 2015 edition of Scapegoat Review.

The Living Dead

You put on your overcoat,
asked if the people in the frame
looked happy,
intentions not clear.

They often came in shifts,
quite often in silence,
factory workers
ready to punch in.

One dusted the living room,
startled the cat,
not overdoing
the walking through walls thing,
more than that.

No fingerprints on doorknobs,
no breath on the window,
rather, a knock heard once in a while,

a gesture of a smile,
or a faint hello,
quiet as a churchgoer.

One would bartend,
sparkling glass as clear
as the day it was purchased,

or catalogue war photography,
alphabetical by location,
year descending.

It wasn’t the property,
nor any sort of bloodline,
maybe for the sake of the end,
something to keep them busy;

or for the sake of a former life.

At a Late Hour

Some punch a clock.
I do, on occasion,
except it’s a slide, now,
the coffee cup accessory trigger arm
winds up, and the pitch,
slowly trickling down, leaky faucet of timeclock
and bird chirping success noise.
I mainly arrange words, sloppily,
like ketchup all over one’s face after
sucking down a late night cheeseburger,
because sometimes you don’t feel like cooking,
or mopping up your face.
But I’ll sit with java vapor instead,
and envy how the cup has much more poetry
than my crooked halo hat head.