He had bad teeth and liked to eat candy, especially cinnamon red-hots. The way they disappeared, but left you with a devil’s tongue for the rest of the afternoon. He practiced his trick in alleys (tossing his thumb away and snatching it back out of thin air), then came out to bus stops to perform. Everything he ever did he did in Pittsburgh. He is survived by little girls and boys standing in front of mirrors, bending their fingers into submission.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 17, Issue 2.
Virginia Bell is the author of From the Belly (Sibling Rivalry Press 2012). Her poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and have appeared in the anthology The Burden of Light: Poems on Illness and Loss and other journals and anthologies. She is a Senior Editor with Rhino Poetry and an adjunct professor of English at Loyola University Chicago.
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