(I qualified for the semi-finals! A draft snippet of a slam-to-be.)

I just wanted to buy some worms.
I was tired, I was feeding a houseful
of hungry lizards, and I drove all the way
into the North End cuz I was trying not
to shop at Petland.


And while I was deciding between
frozen or live bloodworms and reading
nutritional information for lizards, I hear
three things:

the chime above the exotic-pet-store-door,
the scream of the parrot behind the counter,
and a woman telling a story
about a sick relative, one of those stories
no-one really wants to hear when you ask someone
how they are but you don't know how to say
you don't care, so you listen.

And I hear her say,
"I tell my kids, I tell 'em when I'm in the hospital,
I don't want no goddamn Indian nurses coming
anywhere near me. They can go back to the goddamn
Phillippines. That's what I tell them."

And when I stick my head out from the bloodworm aisle
to ask if these come in packages of twelve at Petland,
where I'll be taking my business so I don't have to listen
to someone's racist tirade, before I even open my mouth,
she stops talking.



And it takes me a second to realize she has shut up
not because she's ashamed of being overheard or
annoyed that I'm eavesdropping. It takes me a second
to realize that she is staring at me, and she sees

my nose ring. And my dark hair, long like it usta be
and my lazy-girl's unibrow and my skin like it gets in
August when I have been too cheap to buy sunscreen.

(to be continued. . .)