Super-Sized Series

 Odd Characters and Connections Part 1

 
 
Havana by Sarah Russell

Early morning on the wharf, sharing a thermos
with Juan Pablo. He’s brown and scuffed
as old boots, tough like that too, eyes squinted
with age and sun. He knows the ocean
like his woman’s face, reads stars, wind,
waves, like poems. He’s mending a net, hands
stiff and scarred, sorting gnarls and frays,
ash falling from a Camel held square
between his teeth. A tourist interrupts,
though no one’s talking, wants to hire
the boat to fish tarpon. Juan Pablo grunts
and nods toward a salt-soaked sign
with hourly rates. The guy says he’ll be back
with his wife and kid. Juan Pablo watches him
stride toward a hotel, New York cadence
out of step with the lap of water on pilings.
He snorts, then gathers up the net, half done,
stands with a stumble to favor his bum knee.
He jerks his head toward the seamless join
of sea and sky. C’mon, he says, taking the stub
of Camel and grinding it under his heel.
That cabrón can hire another boat.

First published in  Rusty Truck


Duplicity by Elaine Sorrentino

The TV lingered on PBS
her channel of choice until
she retired from the daily grind
and discovered Magnum P.I.,
Al Pacino, and Judge Judy.

It was a head-scratcher why
this crotchety old woman spent
hours in front of Jacque Pepin,
Julia Child, Jeff Smith, when
she rarely held dinner parties,

yet thrived on every occasion
to pontificate her views on how
local government was taking
advantage of an old lady
on a pension; expecting her

to contribute to schools
when she had no children,
to maintaining ball fields
when she didn’t follow sports,
to supporting senior centers

when she never ventured out.
Such views might stem from someone
unfamiliar with “love-thy-neighbor,”
but she bragged of hosting weekly
Bible study for fellow “holy rollers.”


Neighbor by Wilda Morris

I squeezed the loaf of bread tighter, 
as tears burned a path down my 
dirty cheeks. Here I was,
in the middle of the block,
on the right side of the street,
exactly where my house should be.
But it was not. What evil magic 
had changed the world?
Where was my home, with Grandmother 
waiting for bread? My head 
turned to the ground. I shrank,
my wails now larger than I. 

Hearing something, I looked 
through the fog of tears 
and there you were. 
You - the wolf who ate 
Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother,
Peter, Peter who kept his wife
in a pumpkin shell, the witch
who tried to push Hansel in the oven.
I'd known who you were since I was four!
If I peeked between lilac bushes 
and saw you in your garden, I would run.
Fridays, I saw taxi drivers bring you home, 
help you stagger to the door.
I heard your wife crying in the night,
your son's shrieks, saw welts
and bruises next day - and his eyes.

And here you were.
You knelt, and with a tender voice
I'd never heard you use, 
asked, What's the matter, Billye?
How could you understand the words
I sputtered, saying I was lost?

And yet you did. And with one hand
lightly on my shoulder, the other 
pointing, said, Look, 
you can see your house from here.
I bolted across the weedy field,
still clutching the bread, 
not saying thank you.

First published in Prairie Light Review.

 

Collector of Days by Rose Mary Boehm
 
An old man. Stooped. A black suit, cardboard collar.
A grey beard, glasses over sad, sunken eyes.
A much-fingered wooden box. An old, dark shop.
Antique clocks, hesitant chimes.
 
The old man buys days; dog days,
death days, murderous ones...
The day a woman caused her lover’s death,
the night a father witnessed his daughter’s suicide,
the afternoon a mother helplessly
watched her small son drown,
the day the earth stood still.
 
All come to him to sell their worst days.
And nights.
Twenty-four hours.
He takes them off their hands.
He guards them in the box, cherishes
the treasures it contained. Strokes it
gently before he settles for the night,
but he doesn’t sleep. His clients forget
their transaction. Men and women wonder
where Tuesday has gone, Monday,
Wednesday, or Friday, or why the matron
down the road is dressed up
to go to church on a Saturday.
 
Emptiness accompanies the collector.
His clocks ring hollow.
The light stops at the dirt-covered
windows, his hunger never sated.
Some days cannot be bought.

From my book Whistling in the Dark


So Like You by Mary Ellen Talley

It was the ten-pound chocolate bar
you left on our doorstep,
in the cardboard box—size of a turkey 
platter, generous, & too large for the occasion.

Imagine an ex-pro football tackle
of overwhelming size & conversation
but with a backstory 
of loneliness.


ordinary friend by j.lewis

such an odd request
how could i refuse--
i'd like to be an ordinary friend
not so close that you tell me
secrets you kept from your father
or so distant that you only post
“happy birthday” because facebook
reminds you it is time
 
no, ordinary will do, thank you
share a picture or two online
let me know your public wins
and shared losses, your child's
first steps or words
some new restaurant you tried
that i might also like
 
no burdens or obligations
no midnight messages to ask
why you haven't answered
my last fifty emails
none of that at all
just be there enough
that i can go to sleep
feeling that someone important
has my back
 

Bandage Man by Martha Ellen

He appeared beckoning,
wearing all white.

Driving the coast highway
at night a woman alone

can’t be too careful.
I don’t stop. 

On my way to a lecture.
Police work research.

Psychopaths. Monsters
walking among us.

The Dahlmers, the Geins, 
hiding in plain sight.

I hurry home, safe and sound.
An article in the Daily A:

“Bandage Man sighting”
not too far from Seaside.

Local silly myth like
Bigfoot or Yeti.

I blocked the door with a chair
even though it was locked. 


BEWITCHED by Lorena Caputo
      —para doña Elva
            … if you can hear these words …
 
I.
Barefoot a woman walks
south down the black highway
a blue shirt tied at her waist
hiding her bare hips
 
She crosses her arms
across her bare
large, sagging breasts
her eyes looking down
 
just walking, walking
 
Her sun-toasted skin
the color of the eastern hills
twisted from the earth’s depths,
sparsely covered with thorny brush
 
Above those heights circle frigate birds
flying inland from the deep-blue sea
on the other side of the highway,
ebbing, flowing upon sand
 
the color of her sun-toasted skin
 
 
II.
Quarter moon passes to new
 
& this afternoon
I see that woman
bewitched by her
husband’s lover
 
walking northward
up that black highway
bare-breasted, bare-bottomed
barefoot, sun-toasted
 
walking, just walking …

first appeared in The Fem