Mario Mancuso photo
By
Lenore Weiss
Jerold wished he could audition for a part as TV’s Jack-in-the Box with that white Styrofoam thing pulled over his head. Not that he was particularly scary looking. It’s just that he was a half-inch short of 5’2” and imagined himself wearing platform shoes with Jack’s pointy black nose like a jolly snowman.
Out here on the sidewalk, Jerold’s baldness didn’t help, nor his damaged left eye from an accident, never mind his mottled skin. Wearing Jack’s white globe, it wouldn’t matter how many flyers he handed out on the corner of Market Street.
Tourists looking to find some Beach Blanket Babylon when it was around them everywhere in sleeping bags and cardboard boxes.
He placed one over his head and saw out.
Lenore Weiss
Last year I received my MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University where I won the Clark-Gross Award (Paul La Farge) and the Robert Browning Dramatic Monologue contest. My writing has been published online and in print journals. Poetry books include Cutting Down the Last Tree on Easter Island (West End Press, 2012) Two Places (Kelsay Books, 2014) and The Golem (Hadassa Word Press, 2017). My blog resides at www.lenoreweiss.com.