Notes on Stalmate

A too-shiny quarter.
Man with a plaid cotton eyepatch like a cheap jewel pulled tight against his neck.
Wheels up to the taco truck order window.

“Is that a real twenty?”
[“turning tricks”] [“out of pocket”]
“Is that actual beef?”

Worker in the window winks.
Scratches at the eyelid sty.

*

1. Glaucon religiously attempts to flatter Socrates.
   1. i.     Desperate to become Socratic “bff.”
   2. ii.     “like a woolen lover”
   3. iii.     Resting atop his Winnebago motor home for the sun.
   4. iv.     Rhetoric fails to compensate for its failure to permeate.
   5. v.     –though it’s never explicitly expressed in pen on the page.

Photo credit: Bob G.