Orlando, Florida, 2001

It had a skeleton on a motorbike, or something, and the droll Old Guys Rule logo

and the guy behind me said That’s an awesome shirt, man! Hey,

have you heard the new Eric Clapton?

I considered: That shitty album was at least three years old.

I’m not sure I said. He said I say ‘new’, but I mean, it’s new to me, ya know? Realized

he’d been in prison, the album released before he was. I didn’t want to talk. Rude, because scared.

 

But it was the afternoon. The sun shone generously. He felt it

and looked past my cold shoulder in a palace of clothes that he chose, just happy

to be free again, talking about whatever with anybody, standing in line

with impunity on a Saturday for an Icee.

 

 

Stereo Story #661

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Brian A. Salmons is a writer and translator from Orlando, Florida. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Eyedrum Periodically, Ekphrastic Review, Arkansas International, Levee Magazine, Mantis, NonBinary Review, Memoir Mixtapes, Sunlight Press, Poets Reading the News, O:JA&L, The Light Ekphrastic, Eratio, and others, including anthologies from YellowJacket Press and TL;DR Press. He also hosts The Ekphrastic Review's podcast, TERcets.