I can learn a lot about you from how you treat your waiter,
whether you make it fun, what you ask, how much advice you seek, whether you care
about the specials, what drink you order for him, if you invite him to your wedding,
whether you introduce him as your waiter or your friend, how much you are willing
to sacrifice to sustain his lifestyle, if you would name your children after him or
make him their godparent, what bedroom you would give him if he needed a
place to stay, whether you’d accept him if he ran away with your wife, if you would
care for his sick pets while they gallivant together in Europe, whether you would put
his Christmas card with your ex-wife on the fridge or tear it up and burn it, how you
would tell your children that you may not be their real father, where you would live
after the divorce, if you’d be willing to die for him, how much time it would take
before you realize your appetizers never arrived.
I Hear Sinatra in Ceiling Fans and Stilettos by Brendilou Armstrong
The woman with the hips that sashay
wears stilettos as metronomes,
and the ceiling fan wafts its air in double-time to her beat.
This reminds me of the moment I discovered
each spruce tree knew how to play jazz,
their leaves rustling like snares
while the bees hummed Miles Davis,
or when I mindlessly plucked the spirals of my notebook
and strummed a Fender all at once
It is transferring hair
and sleeking each section into a braid
It is chocolate melting in warm milk
tracing its heat down your throat
It is the heels of the woman with –
and the ceiling fan that –
It is melodies in the mundane,
finding and accepting them as such.
So give me time in this world
to cup my ears and listen to its music.
How to Cut Your Hair by Brendilou Armstrong
So your curls have been singed from the heat of a man’s fingers, injured from his wedding ring that plucked your strands as if snipping petunias at the stem. You are a ball of black thread in his palm, and he leaves with you tucked in his jean pocket.
This is when you’ll know it’s time for a trim.Your scissors are dull, and their blades haven’t been used since they cut chains of people from construction paper. Pick them up and thank them for their versatility. It’s these or the pocketknife he left on the nightstand.
Begin snipping away the ribbons that your mother delicately tied for you at birth. Watch the knots and tattered bows land on your discarded clothing.
How many curls did you devote to him? Keep cutting as you count the vacant spots on your scalp. It’s been so long since you’ve last had openings. You remember the raven tresses he tugged were dyed and take pleasure in knowing that you’re naturally a light brunette.
Your hand will cramp, but you’ve almost sheared away the odor of musk stirred into your oils, a pungent concoction of weed and desire that kept your nostrils open but your conscience blind.
Hold your breath. Keep cutting.At some point there will be almost no more hair. Ringlets now spreadeagled on the hardwood, the floor peppered with enough c’s and o’s to remind you of his company, but comb your fingertips through the strands that remain. See how you’ve grown since the last time your hair was this short?
Landing by Alison Blake
The plane shakes,
grazing the airport runway,
and I watch Dad sink deeper into his window seat,
unfurl his dimples and grin
as the flight attendant’s lilt
jolts the cabin out of our six-hour stupor,
him into relief.
At home—not his
—he sometimes stutters,
blood pulsing to his fair, tautened cheeks
when my sister mocks his cadence.
Here, squeezed next to me and her, he chats away,
hardens his ‘r’s,
adds syllables where they don’t belong, technically,
but I think sound just right
because he’s beaming,
reclining beyond what economy legroom allows,
rejoicing at coming home,
at seeing his sisters
and knowing they don’t mean it
when they call him an eejit.*
He peers out the puny, oval window,
perceiving green beyond the runway gray.
*An Irish colloquialism for “idiot.”
Salvation (Or the Cure for Cancer) by Alison Blake
Mom’s hair fell out, but she didn’t need a wig.
Joining the convent meant wearing a habit,
pulling the wimple over her forehead
and forsaking vanity forever.
When we visited, the Mother Superior
said she’d never seen such a natural convert,
proved it by pointing to the chapel,
where Mom was kneeling in the first pew
and pleading with God for our absolution, probably,
because we sit in the back if Dad makes us go to Mass.
She’d lost even more weight. I could tell,
even though the habit hid her frame,
and she made the sign of the cross
over the spot where her eyebrows used to furrow.
Before we hugged, before she’d leave the pew,
she genuflected, stooping long enough to panic us.
That’s when I beheld her eyes’ whole curvature
for the first time, their lapis lazuli orbs glistening
as she clasped her crucifix pendant
and tilted her chin up at the ceiling.
She beamed, dimples at home again in her unpainted cheeks,
and though I didn’t know why and might never,
I knew then that she could be saved.
There is beauty alongside US Route 20 by Hannah Brooks
which is hard to believe,
with the Burger King Drive-Thru across the street
and the 18-wheelers whizzing by
and the frequent impossibility of crossing the road.
But somehow,
in this town whose main export is commuters fleeing to somewhere
bigger and
better or else
smaller and
sweeter,
there are moments
(spent sitting on concrete stoops)
when the breeze is just so
and the sunlight strikes through the trees,
daring you to even consider its absence,
and the people who were once strangers are growing to be something a bit warmer.
There are gazebos tucked behind gas stations
and flowers,
blindingly blue,
breaking through sidewalk cracks
and the sort of indulgent laughs and internal smiles you
keep just for yourself,
like the memories of an old friend,
that come from walking next to a highway
and choosing to focus instead
on the small meadow in between the guardrails.
And the horns blare, surely they do.
But the birds don’t stop singing for a moment,
the wonders,
so neither do I.
A Brief Letter from God by Scott Sorenson
To be totally honest with You,
The life you love isn’t real.
You are a shrimpy gorilla with a brain
Too bloated to believe that you are Who you are:
Arbiter of a grand social order
That spins and wiggles and fusses
And doesn’t really have much to do with anything.
You invented Me,
For Christ’s sake.
No music or art really means anything–
It crosses the wires in that overgrown melon of yours
Until You feel pop rocks in your skull,
Smell the color of shame and see the late American President Franklin D Roosevelt
Sitting on your coffee table,
And none of it’s any realer than an acid trip.
You invented everything,
Got it?
Great.
Now,
You could have lived perfectly well
Eating and shitting,
Fucking and dying,
Because that’s all Your body was really designed to do.
One morning, though,
You discovered the wonders
Of watermelon soap.
You felt how it bubbled in Your armpits,
The way its smell stuck to Your clothes
When You peeled them off before bed.
The girl from class remembered that smell,
And the parts of her that can’t overthink
Really liked You.
And just like that,
You were watching shitty horror movies
And threading your fingers through the loops of her pink rug;
The natural order was finished and suddenly trees
Picked up their feet to demand civil rights
And squirrels unionized against Costco.
And You didn’t find anything particularly strange
About that.
You were perfectly fine with wearing a suit
And sending letters to photosynthetic congressmen
If it meant coming home to a girl
With almond-colored eyes.
Please enjoy the life I never gave You–
It’s arbitrary and unnatural
And wonderful in all the ways
You hoped it would be.
Unceasingly indifferent,
God