{"id":7263,"date":"2016-08-10T21:50:30","date_gmt":"2016-08-11T03:50:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=7263"},"modified":"2016-08-10T21:50:30","modified_gmt":"2016-08-11T03:50:30","slug":"hinky-man","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=7263","title":{"rendered":"hinky man"},"content":{"rendered":"

Natasha Burge<\/strong><\/p>\n

he was the hinky man
\nbowlegged and metal-toothed
\ntoenails of a vagabond saint
\nriptide feral and freaked<\/p>\n

we taunted him
\nwe thrilled at him<\/p>\n

neighborhood wild man
\nscuttling out of his house
\nwith the licorice door
\nand the droop-eye windows
\nwalking higgledy-piggledy
\nlike his legs came out the same hole
\nand had to bicker each time they
\ntook a step<\/p>\n

closer and closer he came toward us
\nour little table littered with lemons
\nand cups and napkins and change<\/p>\n

he beached himself on our shore
\ntook in our wares
\nand loosed that grin upon us<\/p>\n

lemonade?<\/p>\n

a nod
\nup
\ndown
\npuppeteer snipped his string<\/p>\n

two, please<\/p>\n

two?<\/p>\n

we stared at that second finger lifted to the sky
\nclouds spun off the yellow nail bed
\nthe whole earth wobbled on its axis<\/p>\n

two cups for the hinky man?
\nwhat could he want with two cups?
\nhe was only ever alone
\nsolitude built into the skin of him
\nloneliness his only virtue<\/p>\n

we looked down the street to his house
\nwas that a twitch of curtain in the bug-eyed window?
\nwas there a mrs. higgledy-piggledy?
\nwas there someone to love the hinky man
\nwith his crocodile smile
\nand driftwood legs?<\/p>\n

we gave him two cups<\/p>\n

keep the change he said
\nand turned like a listing ship
\nand crab walked his way home<\/p>\n

NATASHA BURGE<\/strong> divides her time between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain where she and her husband are owned by an unruly herd of rescue animals. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Crack the Spine<\/em>, Bitterzoet<\/em>, Luna Station Quarterly<\/em>, Ink in Thirds<\/em>, and Tasa’ol<\/em>. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in creative writing and wrestling her first novel into shape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Natasha Burge he was the hinky man bowlegged and metal-toothed toenails of a vagabond saint riptide feral and freaked we taunted him we thrilled at him neighborhood wild man scuttling out of his house with the licorice door and the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":7262,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7263","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-1T9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7269,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7263\/revisions\/7269"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}