BATHING BEAUTIES

by Karen Olshansky

I’ve always despised Martha Stewart,

her smug, “I can cook anything from scratch, 

decorate a table with weeds from my

yard,”and, her hints:

add a Lazy Susan to your fridge,

label everything,

make a triple fudge multilayered cake

while dictating an article on preventing mildew,

create a blender smoothie from 

home grown vegetables,

and, most importantly,

how to be the perfect prison inmate by teaching yoga.

My first swimsuit was a

two piece blue stripped beauty

with a skirt bottom.

I loved it, the only problem was that after a hard afternoon

of playing in the shallow river waters, 

my top would

drift upwards to reveal tiny nipples, my mother would say,

“just take off your top” but that was bad advice for a 

self conscious little girl.

at 16 I wore a one piece tank suit with four buttons on 

the front outlining my breasts,

my mother thought I looked wow, 

I felt that my thighs were fat.

At 26, I had a grown-up two piece with a skirt bottom.

After a dip in the ocean a much older male relative said,

“You are a fine figure of a woman” which made me 

feel slightly dirty, never did wear that outfit  again.

Now when I go swimming, I hide accordion skin,

vein lined legs, and falling body parts

by wearing a long sleeve caftan

that drapes towards my ankles.

Martha Stewart, who, at 81, throws her perfectly coiffed hair

around like she is making a Clairol commercial, dons white (white!)

bathing attire that shows

the full top half her breasts. 

My grandmother and her friends would go swimming 

unashamed of the blue streaks threatening to

escape from their legs, belly fat and breasts hanging low 

as ripe peaches on a tree.

They never heard of Martha Stewart.

Karen Olshansky lives in Marin County California with her husband and a well fed Koi named Pickle Face. She writes poetry in order to maintain her sanity. Her work has appeared in The Literary Nest, Tuck Magazine and the anthologies Lingering in the Margins, Life in Ten Minutes, Unspoken, and The James River Anthology.

TAKING MY OWN ADVICE

by Joan Mazza

Stop arguing with crazy people,

the anti-vaxxers who don’t believe

viruses exist, but believe in the power

of prayer. Don’t try to inform

the stubborn, the disinterested,

and the know-it-alls. You’ll come

off as another arrogant know-it-all.

Never mind your science education.

Give up all hope that people will

take the time to learn the facts

or acknowledge them when they are

presented clearly. They don’t respect

experts and you aren’t an expert.

Don’t name the logical fallacy.

Don’t explain confirmation bias.

Don’t say sampling error,

anecdotal evidence, or placebo

effect. Stop arguing with the dead,

who had no interest in your welfare

when they were alive. Give it up.

Let it go. Any response reinforces

the crazies. Poor souls, they need

attention, even negative attention.

Don’t celebrate All Trolls Day.

Joan Mazza has worked as a microbiologist and psychotherapist, and taught workshops  on understanding dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self, and her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, and The Nation. She lives in rural central Virginia. 

MAY DAY REVERIE FOR A PLAGUE YEAR

by Steven Croft




Let us go madcap into the outside air physicians tint
with rolling globes like schools of fish that find the darkness
of our lungs, lodge and sting there, a cyanide of suffocation.
Let us go out, walk past every microbe merciless and seeking
like a crow's flat eye

To the Exchange Club Fairgrounds where the Dixieland
Carnival has parked in silent rows gathering the field's dust
for the last two months, unpack its trucks, let the carnies
fire up the Ferris wheel and merry-go-round, share our
cotton candy, hear the cries

Of the game booths' winners and losers, fun with probability
where stakes are low, but as night wears we'll remember
the risk we've taken, repack the carnival, carry a day's memory
of joy between our hands to the solitary wards of our homes,
our national hospital we fled briefly and against all advice.


Steven Croft lives on a barrier island off the coast of Georgia. He has recent poems in Willawaw Journal, Sky Island Journal, So It Goes: The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, Third Wednesday, Red Eft Review, San Pedro River Review, Poets Reading the News, Gyroscope Review, and other places.