Subterfuge
by Brad Johnson

      
      
This is not my apartment.
You are not here.
There's a knock at the door.
The bed is burnt.
The blanket's a black cinder.
The TV says they're looking for me.
It's either dawn or dusk.
The windows are barred.
I can't stand up.
I crawl out onto the porch.
Two plain-clothes men pull an extraordinary car
onto the lawn of the house across the street.
They jump somebody,
knee him in the gut,
step on his neck,
handcuff his arms behind his back.
One of us is crying. Me or him. I can't tell.
I'm innocent of all charges.
There's a knock at the door.
You are not here.
The smoke detector starts ringing.
The plain-clothes men look up
after shutting the guy in the back seat.
I crawl in from the porch.
Six fun house mirrors line the staircase wall.
This is not my apartment.
Lottery tickets float to the floor.
A shotgun leans against the oven.
A wedding's happening soon.
You are not here.
There's a knock at the door.
Someone's demanding something.
I have no money.
The clocks are all wrong.
This is not my apartment.
You are not here.

Brad Johnson is currently teaching Literature and Composition at Keiser College in Fort Lauderdale, FL, and is a graduate of the MFA program at the University of Miami. His chapbook, Void Where Prohibited, was published in 2003 by Pudding House Press, and his work has recently appeared in Into the Teeth of the Wind, Jeopardy, No Exit, Sho, Poetry Motel, and Red River Review.