derek dew
customers
The colors of the candy shelves form a road,
we’re a little bit painted on it and nobody’s ever heard of us.
The immutable hurt is that the line of hopefuls
offering their sweat has one nobody wants.
The lights burn even with nobody in the aisles,
nobody the wolves are mountainous nobody in the food court.
THIS IS NOT AN EXIT now a Greco sangria.
They sell them in the bathroom along with the condoms.
The home nobody visits and nobody wants
returns in the mail as the grand prize of a sweepstakes
from the next life to come where it’s a real big hit.
Derek Dew is a neurodivergent, non-binary poet currently living in New York City. Their debut poetry collection “Riddle Field” received the 2019 Test Site Poetry Prize from the Black Mountain Institute/University of Nevada. Their poems have appeared in a number of anthologies, and have been published in a variety of journals, including Interim, ONE ART, The Maynard, Ultramarine Review, Two Hawks Quarterly, Ocean State Review, and Cathexis Northwest Press.