Patric Pepper

America’s Sterling Muses

Catch Each Other up Among the Ethers

You remember Why-Guy Aikins? Sure, how’s he doin’? He be dead.
He be dead? He be dead. Non ! Oui ! What happened to Why? He fell
Off the Empire State Building tryin’ to shoot down you-know-who
With one of those terrorist-movie missiles he found in his dad’s shed.
O my gosh! Kýrie, eléison! Breakin’ the law! Breakin’ the law!

Well, you remember Wacky Jackie? Sure, how’s he doin’? He be dead.
Non! Yep! How? His Mom shot ’im in the forehead for some good reason

When Wacky tried to sneak her pearl handle pistol back under her pillow.

O well—Christe, eléison! I luv it! Luv it!
Breakin’ the law! Breakin’ the law!

Hey, remember Billy B. Braggin? Sure, how’s he doin’? Billy be dead.
Non ! ¡Si!—For real . . . mec. And it came to pass? Burned Mr. Sober’s
Barn—that’s right, down to the ground—after he and the rest did you-
know-what inside, though just for fun. Big Boy Billy stood in the barn
like Joan of Arc burning alive. Burning alive? Burning alive.

O, Kýrie, eléison! O my gosh! O, I luv it!
Breakin’ the law! Breakin’ the law!

Patric Pepper, a retired process engineer, holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Maryland. He has published three chapbooks, and a full-length book, Temporary Apprehensions, winner of the Washington Writers’ Publishing House Poetry Prize. His recent work has appeared in Innisfree Poetry Journal, Mid-Atlantic Review, Full Bleed and Backbone Mountain Review. His full-length collection, From Emptiness the Wondrous Being Appears, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press, spring, 2027. Pepper lives on Cape Cod, in North Truro, Massachusetts.