Predecessor

He walks several paces ahead of me,
forever saying what I want to say,
doing what I want to do: polite,
patient, adroit, proceeding in a state
of grace. And, because I can never
get close enough to throttle him, throw
him down on his damned red carpet
and trample on his twisted form, I try
instead, with varying levels of failure,
to content myself with tolerating him.
I shudder to think how he feels about me.

Kyle Heger, former managing editor of Communication World magazine, lives in Albany, CA. His writing has won a number of awards and has appeared in 58 publications, including London Journal of Fiction, Nerve Cowboy, and U.S. 1 Worksheets. He attended Washtenaw Community College in the 1970s.