I wouldn’t be here. Or not like this?
Grandma’s blonde ringlets had gone bald,
her teeth missing slots, her eyes—
gray-blue rime.
My Umatilla grandfather
who had one leg, lived down the road,
hobbled to her heroin loyally.
By KAREN CHASE
my body and
in the morning, it
returns. To exist fully, it
needs more than my body, so
up it goes into the stars, for
sustenance. I open
my eyes and pray—
It was a gold-seal ruse. A double-
dealing so sublime the gods ordained
it. Settled into their stadium seats,
they wagered on their favorites. Helen,
the imposter bride, circling and circling
the gifted horse. Her Central Casting
lines to the shadows inside. The numbing
non-reply. War-weary, she fastened her
hair in gold and dressed for a city
ablaze. Nothing to do but wait.
Who can know my despair
at the ones who talk too much.
The ones who don’t speak at all.
The ones who qualify and over-qualify.
The ones who can’t say this without first saying that.
Make them like stubble driven by the wind.
By TINA CANE
Like yesterday
I could have cried with relief driving around
this little city running errands with mariachi rancheras blasting
on my radio making the everyday feel extravagant like being
in a film about running errands or some other earlier version
I denounced abstract expressionism. I became a realist and portrait painter. I started paying my taxes. I flossed my teeth with regularity. I tied my shoes with punctuality. I wore dress shoes for that matter. I no longer sang in the shower. I stopped skateboarding on the weekend. I threw away my Neil Young & Crazy Horse albums. I tipped my waiter a decent amount. I cut my long hair. I voted early on Tuesday morning. I wore a fitted suit for the job interview. I got a job as a civil servant in Paris. I established good credit and got engaged. I got married in the summertime at sunset on the misty beach. I had half a dozen children. They loved me but worked me to the bone. I fell asleep at a reasonable hour. I started using an alarm clock in the early morning. I ate my breakfast with black coffee and a filter-less cigarette.
—after “My Husband and I Fight about Robots” by Sara Burge
Mother’s on her way back from the Fayette waterpark,
where the kids don’t know how to be lazy in the lazy river.
Mother’s trying to float in her tube,
and they’re knocking into me like we’re bumper cars.
In the background, Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’.”
By TINA CANE
Today’s lively experiment was supposed to be about the virtues of olive oil
and the simple yet sumptuous lifestyle of Italian nonnas maximizing their wellness
by just being themselves but no sooner had I embraced the integrity of handmade
bucatini and a schmatta than did my mind migrate towards questions about the source
of self-regard and whether there really are any self-evident truths
I was in my car
bird song laced the particulate air
wind emptied the pines of their whistle
a cloud roamed aimless arriving somewhere
the creek lapped away at its trestles
I don’t know what this means.
It’s just before 8, and my darling
cat pounced behind the recycling mound
and emerged with a mouse. She carried
it up to my room to begin her dirty work,
the quest to kill without wounding,
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