Poetry: Yellow Wax Beans By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Yellow Wax Beans

 

The can opener

is rusted through

and squeals 

like a jailhouse fink

each time 

I turn the crank.

 

One of the wheels 

has come loose,

jerking madly as it makes

its way sporadically 

around the metal.

 

The fangs 

barely puncture the lid,

so that I have to stop 

many times 

and jab them in again 

to take hold. 

 

No one

wants yellow wax beans

this bad, I think to myself,

but I persevere like a man 

on a mission.

 

Not to space

or to free some emaciated

hostages from the

angry dark.

 

Only for some beans,

a stick of waiting butter.

 

 

 

 

 

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Horror Sleaze Trash, Rusty Truck, Red Fez, Fixator Press and The Oklahoma Review.  He enjoys listening to the blues and cruising down the TransCanada in his big blacked out truck.