Waiting for a Call to Tell Me I Can Get My First Shot of the Vaccine

Ace Boggess

Six months shy of the age to qualify
after the latest lowering. 

I’d skip the line—shameful display
of privilege, I recognize,

but goddamn it, I want this
more than I ever wanted sex,  

money, or parole. I’m tired
of expecting to find myself dead 

when drugs didn’t kill me,
or cops, the other cons. 

Most natural thing in existence,
this desire to live, an urge 

I often lacked when I fought
& bled, when pills 

pressed my face to a dirty floor.
Now that I have it, 

death surrounds me, jeering,
elbowing my ribs 

at the joke it told
as if I were paying attention. 

I confess: I’d cheat or rob
(again), or bribe, coerce, 

to reclaim freedom from worry.
Still, the call doesn’t come, 

& each time my cellphone chimes,
it’s another scammer 

attempting to steal my history
he’s too rude to know he doesn’t want.

Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, including Escape Envy (Brick Road Poetry Press). His poems have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Mid-American Review, Harvard Review, River Styx, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia. @AceBoggess