Sitting up against the headboard.
The pillows propped and then some.
We are the resident drunks on the 7th floor.
Stocking up at the Monoprix across the street
and sitting up in bed getting drunk
with the window open
for a fraction of the price.
Each night
when I come down in the elevator
they start handing me the corkscrew
without even asking.
Then I return it and thank them.
So happy when I get fellow tourists
who pile in with their luggage
and don’t want to stare
at me.
When I get back up to the room,
she is already building a photo album
of the day.
As two women start screaming
in the street below,
trying to pull the hair out of each other’s head
and the sirens begin again
so that we can toast to another day
neither of us has ever imagined.
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, The Rye Whiskey Review, Outlaw Poetry Network, Horror Sleaze Trash, The Dope Fiend Daily and In Between Hangovers.
