Marc Huerta Osborn

Why They Prohibit Drinks on the Rink

I’m even worse with rules than I am 
with wheels. Have you ever been concussed? 
It is mostly a rolling—a slow, cavernous 
rolling, and a stranger’s concern emerging 
from blur to peer down at your dazed, supine 
face. Sometimes the stranger resolves 
into someone familiar. Usually not. You know,
in a harvest of shishito peppers, only about one 
in ten will hold heat. Also, parrotfish
make their own sleeping bags. And some head injuries
lead to hypergraphia, uncontrollable urge 
to scribble. It is considered a cousin 
of epilepsy. Did you know this? Mostly 
I just dredge up fun facts to keep you from leaving me 
alone with my thoughts. Rolling, rolling . . .
No, don’t check your phone. Do you have to go 
already? I know a place in an unincorporated zone 
that serves cold beer and stays open late, 
where you can roll in circles for hours (hours!) 
and go sore in the ankles if you don’t lace your skates 
up just right, like— Oh. 
Ok. 
Well, walk me home at least? 
The moon is still a ripe, uncracked skull. 
I don’t know if mine would make it 
all the way across the street.

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Marc Huerta Osborn‘s poetry appears in Rust + Moth, The Acentos Review, Ghost City Review, Juked, and The Westchester Review, among other places.