Current
Issue
Volume 12.1
Bill Ratner
—
King in the Dunny
After Jessie Mae Robinson
I am Elvis in the mirror —
bad teeth like Bobby Peru in Wild at Heart,
rock'n'roll, rubbery, wet,
short, but with a gun.
When I was nine I floated
like an innertube
down a flooded summer creek,
pitch black dacron shirt tucked tight,
and baritoned the bridge—
I never kissed a bear, I never kissed a goon,
but I can shake a chicken in the middle of the room.
Elvis loved his Momma,
and I loved mine,
dead and gone but remembered
for her rhymes and fleshy smell.
Don't know what Daddy did—
toke on his tobacco,
croon in the shower.
This can sometimes grow an Elvis.
Bill Ratner is a voice actor and author of poetry collections Lamenting While Doing Laps in the Lake (Slow Lightning Lit, 2024,) Fear of Fish (Alien Buddha Press, 2021,) To Decorate a Casket (Finishing Line Press, 2021,) Best of the Net Micro-Non-Fiction Nominee 2025 (McQueen's Quinterly,) Best of the Net Poetry Nominee 2023 (Lascaux Review,) and 9-time winner of the Moth StorySLAM. His writing appears in Best Small Fictions 2021 (Sonder Press,) Missouri Review (audio,) Baltimore Review, Chiron Review, Feminine Collective, and other journals. He is a Caucus Chair for his union SAG-AFTRA, a trained grief counsellor, and teaches Voiceovers for SAG-AFTRA Foundation, and Media Awareness for Los Angeles Unified School District. billratner.com
