“Small Favors” by William Ogden Haynes

An old man in an undershirt sits drinking
a beer on the front porch of a New York
row house to quell the city’s summer heat.
As he reads the sports page, his eyes
almost imperceptibly turn from the box scores
to movement on the sidewalk ten feet in front of the stoop.
In a short red skirt and white stiletto heels
she moves smoothly down the center of the sidewalk,
her head up, shoulders back, straining the buttons
on the front of her low cut blouse.
Her arms swing loosely back and forth
while her hips swivel from side to side.

His stubbled face slowly transforms into a smile
as if he were thinking about a pleasant time long past.
But above, his wife peers down from the upstairs window
like a gargoyle, resting her heavy breasts on the sill.
Get in here Harry, you old fool!
When he rises from the nylon-webbed lawn chair,
he lifts the can of Schlitz toward the girl
and his smile broadens as she blows him a kiss.

For more poems by William, purchase FIVE Vol. 1 No. 10.