"Hustler's Sport" by R. Nikolas Macioci

CW :: Please note this piece contains depictions of violence against LGBTQIA+ identities.

Hustler’s Sport

You didn't leave the gay bar with the man
you shared drinks with and talked to
for over an hour, a handsome man in his 20s,
closed-cropped, brown hair, depthless green eyes
you couldn't see what intent lay at the bottom of. 
He hadn't said anything or made any moves
to suggest sexual interest.

Outside, however, you found him loitering
under a streetlamp. He nodded. You sensed
his signal to follow, and you did. Side by side,
you dawdled down an alley between ramshackled
buildings toward the parking lot. His quick
movements slid a pocket knife from your neck
to your navel, as if he were a slaughterhouse butcher.
Blood, the color of a tropical sunset, gushed out of you,
mixed with brown leaves, cigarette butts, beer cans. 
Your eyes glossed open past possibility of seeing
starlight reveal your insides. 

Morning news didn't mention the LGBTQ murder,
the hustler, or his new acquaintance. It didn't happen
in this Bible-thumping, midwestern city clean
as a white sheet over an autopsy.

R. Nikolas Macioci

R. Nikolas Macioci earned a PhD from The Ohio State University. OCTELA, the Ohio Council of Teachers of English, named him the best secondary English teacher in the state of Ohio. He is the author of seventeen books. Cafes of Childhood was submitted for the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. In 2021, he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net award. In 2022, he was again nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He was nominated for a Best of the Net award for 2023. Hundreds of his poems have been published here and abroad in magazines and journals, including Chiron Review, Concho River Review, The Bombay Review, The Raven’s Perch, The Main Street Rag, and West Trade Review.

Headshot: Sandra Feed

Photo Credit: Staff