Kevin Ridgeway

Baby, Please Console Me

the leggy young brunette 

mortuary consultant 

paced the only slightly air-conditioned

waiting area for the grieving families

of the recently deceased 

in a mini skirt

taking my mind off of which 

personalized keepsake mini urn 

I was going to carry my 

mother's ashes 

around in.  

The Beginning of Forever

she had a 

brain aneurism

and she kept saying

to the paramedics

I'm okay, I'm okay

when I got the call

I knew it was the end,

because she spent 

so much time 

and energy

during her 

last year alive 

trying to explain 

to me with 

her final breaths 

that she had 

little time left,

and I had better 

get my 

shit together

we all watched

her slowly 

fade away

in a hospital

overlooking 

Sunset Boulevard,

her mind bleeding,

gone

and my insanity

still unfolding.

Kevin Ridgeway is from Southern California, where he lives and writes.  His Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominated work has most recently appeared or is forthcoming in Chiron Review, BIG HAMMER, Nerve Cowboy, San Pedro River Review, Right Hand Pointing, Lummox and The Mas Tequila Review, among others.  His latest chapbooks are On the Burning Shore (Arroyo Seco Press) and Riding Off into that Strange Technicolor Sunset (The Weekly Weird Monthly).