Keith Dunlap: “The Pharmacist”
THE PHARMACIST
The pharmacist has a lazy eye.
It is difficult not to stare.
His thinning hair, his blue smock,
his trembling hands, his pock-marked face
do not compare with the wayward eye
which droops into the corner
of its socket. I am tempted to surmise
whether he wants me or doesn’t want me
to look him in the eyes. But the fact is
that his deformity is as clear to me
as mine is to him, since
even with his lazy eye
he can read my prescription.
Keith Dunlap’s work has appeared in numerous journals, including Baltimore Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Carolina Quarterly, Comstock Review, Ninth Letter, and Poet Lore. Hip Pocket Press published his first collection, Storyland, in 2016.