Eyes Peg Me
Thomas M. McDade
Fruit the size of crabapples
Fall off palm tree clusters
And many are squished
Along the walk leading
To the parking lot
Ripe for a cracked hip suit
A fellow says take a couple
Seeds will sprout anywhere
A kitchen worker leaves
Scraps behind a big green
Pickup for the hotel cat
That’s white and black
I debate approaching a woman
Walking two corgis to say that I used
To know a woman who bred them and
Wrote a book about the Pembroke kind
At a crosswalk while swiveling
Her head to check the traffic her
Eyes peg me for a panhandler
Or someone who’d plant seeds
By a gravestone in a climate
Where they’d never pop the soil
A creep who’d fight a feral over
A once bitten dumpster shrimp
I smile at the mirror image
My accuser leaves behind
And fondly recall the late author
I scratch my head as I might
Have done for one of those dogs
Thomas M. McDade is a resident of Fredericksburg, VA, previously CT & RI. He is a graduate of Fairfield University.
McDade is twice a Navy Veteran, serving ashore at the Fleet Anti-Air Warfare Training Center, Dam Neck, Virginia Beach, and at sea aboard the USS Mullinix (DD-944) and the USS Miller (FF-1091)
He’s been published in every state and D.C. and many locations abroad.
Art: Marietta by Nicola Brayan who is a young, aspiring artist from Sydney, Australia. She has rediscovered her passion for art during the pandemic. She uses vivid colours and contrast to capture emotions and expression. Her work is a love letter to what it means to be human. More of her work can be found on Instagram at @an.aesthetic.mirror.