← v21n3, Spring 2023
Poetry · Volume 21, Number 3

The Mustache

He grew a mustache huge and black

which he twirled

with carnauba wax

into a filigreed W with a curlicue

twirling forever

at each end.

It took up most of his face.

It shocked

the frontier

towns and it turned ladies

toward his gaze.

His voice grew.

He gestured with his hands like

an Italian stallion

or a toreador

from Mars. It wiggled with

energy and spoke

constantly of

the moon and stars. He kept it

until his friends

held him down

and cut it off with the broken

blue glass of

a whiskey jar.