Fiction    Reading Room    Memoir    Interview
Cliff Fell

Stretch Limo Blues

                Get this –
the airport shuttle out of McCarran
is a black stretch limo,
six of us in here, six dollars a hit
all of us new to the city
and joking, Man, man,
ain’t this the style
and won’t the folks outside
be wondering
if we aren’t Guns’n’Roses
or someone rolling in to town to play
Caesar’s or the Mandalay Bay.
But, hey, this is Vegas – stretch limos
glide down every street, and who gives a shit –
the cocktail cabinet’s empty,
taunting us with its walnut veneer.
Opposite me the old-timer with flipover hair
fiddles with his bag, fetches out a pair of shades,
places them over his big hook nose, rheumy eyes –
       now he’s serene and beautiful
       as an 80-odd-year-old can be,
       dressed in black silk
       wearing a gold rock
       big as a bomb
       on his wedding finger.
He drums on the quilted upholstery
keeping time to Jim Morrison’s beat –
   break on through to the other side
And I’m just beginning to figure things out:
       I’ve left the Chrysler at Thrifty
       I’m staying clear of casinos today
       I’m heading downtown to the Greyhound
       to learn this nugget of American reality –
                No car
                No-
                body
I watch a cactus passing
through the mirror of his shades
surprised to find myself in there –
my swollen reflection
and see how almost overnight
my arm has grown so rich with silver hair.
 
Poetry
Johanna Aitchison
Michele Amas
Angela Andrews
Airini Beautrais
Jenny Bornholdt
Amy Brown
Lynn Davidson
Emily Dobson
Fiona Farrell
Cliff Fell  
Janis Freegard
Helen Heath
Anne Kennedy
Stefanie Lash
Jan Lauwereyns
Vana Manasiadis
Talia Marshall
James McNaughton
Alice Miller
Gregory O’Brien
Frances Samuel
Robyn Schiff
Marty Smith
Elizabeth Smither
Chris Tse
Nick Twemlow
Ashleigh Young

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