DENIAL VILLANELLE

by Judith Terzi

Cartoon by Rob Rogers.

I didn't leave the fridge door open all night.
I didn't leave the front door ajar all day.
I didn't leave the water boiling. Fire fright.

I didn't leave the bathroom light on. Energy blight.
I didn't leave the water running in the sink, btw.
I didn't leave the fridge door open all night.

Pas moi, pas moi. Must have been Mike.
I didn't leave the toothpaste top off in the mêlée.
I didn't leave the water boiling. Fire fright.

I didn't take the papers off the desk. No sleight
of hand in dawn's early light. No fingerprints, eh?
I didn't leave the fridge door open all night.

Yes you, you ate the apple pie. We have to indict.
I didn't, I didn't steal the cap, the coke, the hearsay.
I didn't leave the water boiling. Fire fright.

I didn't eat the last Twinkie. Pas moi, alright?
Then who stole the cookies from the cookie tray?
I didn't leave the fridge door open all night.
I didn't leave the water boiling. Fire fright.

Author of Museum of Rearranged Objects (Kelsay Books, 2018) and five chapbooks, Judith Terzi's poems appear widely in literary journals and anthologies. Her poetry has been read on the BBC, nominated for Best of the Net and Web, and included in a study guide for the artist-in-residence program for State Theater New Jersey. She holds an M.A. in French Literature.

PARAPHERNALIA

by Kristina England

Image source: TaxProf Blog (in response to “The Sex Toys in the Attic” in the NY Times, November 9, 2013).

The most popular article of the week:
New York Time's "Sex Toys in the Attic,"
some older woman's concerns
about her "romping" days,
some toy she collected from a boyfriend.
Surely she's seen the news -
child porn ring broken up in Canada,
over 300 people involved.
Maybe she wrote the article before
the Toronto mayor took crack,
got cracked, cracked a nation.
Or she wanted to lighten the load.
God knows we need a good laugh
and perhaps the occasional mishap
of some not-so-cozy artifact
found under our mother's bed
is enough to pause this avalanche.
There is, after all, some innocence
left in this disjointed world.
And if there's not,
let's keep pretending
vibrators matter
in all these earthquakes,
tsunamis, the tremor
of our minds.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts.  Her fiction and poetry is published or forthcoming at Gargoyle, Found Poetry Review, The Story Shack, Tipton Poetry Journal, and other journals.

LITTLE THINGS AND BIG THINGS

by John Kotula

A terrible, terribly damaged boy nearly bleeds to death in a boat, under a tarp, in somebody’s back yard. Yes, he has blood on his hands and worse. How have we let this happen to one of our boys? But no one will say they are broken hearted. They will only say they are strong. “You picked the wrong city this time,” they say. I just want to cry for a while and hold each other.

My granddaughter is fussing in her car seat. I corkscrew my arm back and grope around for her blinky. I help her get it to her mouth. My beautiful daughter smiles at her beautiful daughter in the rearview mirror. The baby grabs my index finger in her damp, four month old fist and goes back to sleep. Something to suck on, the purr of the motor, someone within reach who loves her, is all she needs for contentment.

Way up in the mountains of Honduras there are plans to build a dam that no one needs or wants. It will make rich Hondurans richer. They will siphon off their share. It will make rich Americans richer. They will sell unsustainable technology to the rich Honduras. Some how the Chinese are involved. Some rich Chinese will get richer, too. The thatched roof houses of the poor people who live along the river will be thirty feet under water.

There is a young man who trusts me to give him advice. His mother is suddenly in the intensive care unit at the hospital. He is ashamed that he doesn’t understand her condition and doesn’t know how to make things better for her. I take the young man to the hospital and help him talk to the social worker. I joke with his mother in my bad Spanish and make her laugh. He feels a little better. I would be proud to be this young man’s father.

Automatic weapon fire blows apart a whole school full of tiny, fragile bodies. Even with the knowledge that they will never hold their own children again, the parents go to Washington and say please don’t let this happen to some one else. But the Republicans have so blatantly sold their souls, you got to wonder why God doesn’t strike them down. Hey God, where is the fire? Where is the brimstone? Where are the frogs and boils?

I am three floors above sea level in an old, old building. Looking out through wavy glass I can see the beach curve away to the north. A poet is reading about her memories of living in Alaska. I know many people in the room. Some of them I’ve known for forty years. In that moment, The New York Times and National Public Radio are far away. I don’t think so much about the little things. The big things are more important.

John Kotula is a writer and artist who lives in Peace Dale, Rhode Island.