Comrades in Arms
I was talking with this fellow the other day down at the diner, we were having a nice cup of coffee at the counter and he told me after I asked him to pass the sugar that he had two left feet and how he couldn’t drive a stick shift or hop around or he’d fall down and he had to ride his bicycle sidesaddle and a bunch of other stuff I pretended to hear and then he slipped his sandals off and I'll be damned, all ten toes and two arches going in the same direction and clumsy me, I blamed it on my surprise when I spilt my coffee and the counter creamer on the both of us and then’s when he suggested, and I obliged, to remove my gloves and show him what he’d suspected all along, my two right hands and a couple of months later after each of us got our security deposits back, he moved out of his handicapped apartment and I moved out of mine and now we’re practically joined at the hip in a house just like yours.
—Charles Springer
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Charles Springer's poetry collection, Juice, will be released this fall. He has degrees in anthropology and is an award-winning painter. A Pushcart Prize nominee, he is widely published in the small presses.