Joyce covets the citrus smell. Couraged by Guinness, the boy-man sinks lemon soap into his mug of stout and rubs the wet cake over tables at Davy Byrnes pub. Davy escorts him out onto the cobbles. Joyce retreats to sniff girl and ink at his Lincoln Place flat. A blonde dressed in Kelly Green sits on his cot awaiting the first act. A moth bounces off his window pane, It bounces again. The blonde yawns. Her yawn makes him yawn. His pants swell as he contemplates vintage positions sans pillows. The swelling summons a fart. The blonde winces. A magpie announces dawn but there are more lines for Joyce to scrawl as he creaks in his window chair. He wants espresso. “Come to me,” she calls. He dips his quill pen in the inkwell on the ledge and sketches her image in black on wood-pulp paper. Joyce feels the urge to shave his balls while writing about his father flirting with a matron flaunting a bowler hat at Sweny’s Pharmacy. Joyce wants to waltz a nude mannequin up Nassau Street in honor of his old man. He peers through glass so old there are bubbles trapped. He imagines tipping his fedora greeting rag men sifting through back-alley garbage.

“Show me your drawing,” the girl coos.
Joyce final flourishes before raising the paper. “It’s you,” he swears.
“No, not me,” she decides. “You’ve drawn that witch living on Ha’Penny Bridge age o’ yo Mum.”
Joyce studies the portrait. “She may be the both of you, Annie.”
Annie lifts her skirt, “Drop pen and pants, James boy. Show me your wares.”

KIRBY MICHAEL WRIGHT was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is a graduate of Punahou School in Honolulu and the University of California at San Diego. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. His most recent book is THE QUEEN OF MOLOKA’I: Book 1: Based On A True Story. This work of creative nonfiction is based on the life and times of Wright’s hapa haole grandmother, a family saga that spans four generations of a kama’aina family.

Wright has been nominated for five Pushcart Prizes and is a past recipient of the Redwood Empire Mensa Award for Creative Nonfiction.