Who Shot J.R.?

I was very young,
but I remember all the adults
talking about it.

Who Shot J.R.?
they would ask each other.

I did not know who J.R. was,
but everyone seemed very concerned.

There was so much speculation.

CBS marketing the catchphrase on television.
Beaming it into every stupid home.

Magazines showed up with: Who Shot J.R.?
plastered across all the covers.

This J.R. must be a very important person!
I thought.
A famous president or scientist.

Everyone wanted to know.

So concerned about Who Shot J.R.?
And never once about who shot all those other
real people that never mattered.

Friday I’m in Love (with Rita)

She sounds like she should be able
to run faster than any other land mammal.

Friday I’m In Love
with Rita.

Lazily chewing on this short order
breakfast omelette.

Almost grazing
in some peeling squeaky wheel banquette
by the window.

Various condiment guts dried
to the side of flippant squeeze bottle nozzle.

Her address in my pocket,
or at least the one she gave me.

Who cares if it turns out to be another
demolition site of flighty hard hats.

That perfectly tousled hair!
Her perfume living rent free
up my nostrils.

I feel 20 pounds lighter
in spite of what the scale says.

Help old ladies across the street
because the world is not half bad
again.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many mounds of snow. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Bourgeon, Setu, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

Image by Jaboyce, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons