by Sean Kilpatrick
Rick’s Pop Shop was a funky arcade north of 8 Mile.
In an insanely painted giant cabinet, your friend
chauffeured, firing a pistol gimballed to the console,
and you sat next to him, cycling through your own clip,
or volleying dual weapons while he crashed into a mall.
Cars shattered, bodies rolling out, screaming. A man
in a wheelchair became an exophytic hydrostat you
shot rockets at. Women in bikinis wearing kitty ears
sampled lo-bit chiptune assent.
Rick, the owner, was in his office telling a soda representative
how he planned to skin him alive so the corpse would stick
to his dick during the rape. Your hit box keeps expanding,
baby, he whispered to the crying brand ambassador.
Rick lost the arcade.
______
Sean Kilpatrick's writing has been published or is forthcoming in The Michigan City Review of Books, Boston Review, Fence, Nerve, Bomb, Vice, Obsidian, evergreen review, Columbia Poetry Review, and The Malahat Review.
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