she's a nice girl. not my type. i like smooth shiny girls, hardboiled & loaded with sin. - alex stolis

                                          “Farewell My Lovely”, Raymond Chandler

The way she holds a gun reminds me

of a recurring dream. I’m waiting

for her to say anything & rain burns

up the shadows. I always wake

to a half-empty bed, my penance

is hard to swallow & it hurts

like only LA can hurt; a woman

throws a kiss meant for you

but it’s caught by a stranger.

I’ll be alone & wonder about her

voice, how it can twist the past

until it becomes our future.

This city is full of the dead, the dying,

& the bored. She tells me sunset

is the wrong side of the tracks;

I tell her I want to be baptized,

buried, & forgotten by the end

of this lost weekend.

Alex Stolis has had poems published in numerous journals. Two full length collections Pop. 1280, and John Berryman Died Here were released by Cyberwit and available on Amazon. His work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Piker’s Press, Ekphrastic Review, Louisiana Literature Review, Burningwood Literary Journal, and Star 82 Review. His chapbook, Postcards from the Knife-Thrower's Wife, was released by Louisiana Literature Press in 2024, RIP Winston Smith from Alien Buddha Press 2024, and The Hum of Geometry; The Music of Spheres, 2024 by Bottlecap Press. He lives in upstate New York with his partner, poet Catherine Arra.