Midday Reverie
Because life didn't turn out the way you thought it would and the phone's incessant ringing begs for it to be taken off the hook. Not that there's a hook because this is the 21st century and you are not a time traveler. What's your excuse for being purposefully old fashioned? You will never be as interesting as sugar, bitters and whiskey, so stop trying so hard. Stop pretending you fit in; you don't belong behind a desk taking someone else's calls. I like the way you fake it, though: it shows commitment. It takes true courage to be chirpy and vapid on purpose. In silence, you dream. Of another life and better days to come. Bite after bite, you resolve to change things. This, you determine, will be the last lunch hour you spend thinking instead of doing. Who's a pretty little liar?
Summer Time Blues
Summer rubs me the wrong way
like two sticks rubbed together creating friction & heat.
Or when I rub the cat's fur the wrong direction
sticking up in an angry arch,
as just like the cat I scratch at the door to go out,
but immediately want in again.
The hot exhalations of the desert sun
feels like the devil's breath on my cheek.
A taunting, teasing, you can't go outside
and play.
I turned up the heat, I own this day.
Inside I walk the walls like a spider
my mood venomous and quick to bite.
Alone, isolated by the heat, desert houses
are like islands inhabited only by the lonely.
Too hot to drive anywhere.
Burnt butt and back thighs on leather seats
only to peel your damaged skin from
where its suctioned in.
Harrison Birch
If you say “good morning,” he will look up
from his weeding, or whatever he is doing in
the fenced area of his front yard, look at you
as if he just caught you mid-squat in the dirt,
and turn his wrinkled nose away. If you knock
on his door to talk about his rusted Accord
blocking your driveway, you see his scowling
face in the window—his greeting, a middle finger.
He’s been known to throw things. The family next
door know not to say anything as they pass by
on the sidewalk; he will snarl at them, and nod
to Mr. Torkington, their pet Doberman.
His house smells like musty papers and
dog food. Scout troops are warned from
approaching his door, a girl fractured her
leg when he had chased her away from
his stoop with a rolled up newspaper.
Animal control makes annual inspections
of his house. One time a concerned neighbor,
startled by all the rabbits, called for a wellness
check. They came and took hundreds of
floppy-eared, snuffling rabbits away in crates,
while he hovered by the front door and sobbed.
Spring finds him kneeling in the fresh dirt of his yard
tilling the soil with a trowel, he spies a baby robin
gray and ugly, crying in loud braying cheeps
—sounds too loud for such a tiny body—he
uses the trowel to expose pink fleshy worms
in the muck and the baby bird hops closer,
dodging nimbly between each shower of dirt.
“You deserve better,” he says, clucking his tongue,
and scans the sky for more friends.
Thief.
I made a mistake,
several actually,
that I can't go back in time
and fix
and I'm terrified
of how things will be
with my family
now that we're here.
I want to say
"I'm sorry"
but it'll go unheard
because I'm (not)
it was once, twice, three times
too many
that lying,
that deceit,
that disrespect,
that cunning,
those things that might get me
killed
one day
maybe.
I prayed to God
last night, hoping that
he's actually there
and that he'll listen just this once
I prayed for things to
get better for us
for me to get better
I found myself religion, I think
I hope I did
maybe it'll fix me?
©SelfTitled, 2017
A jar of coins
A Jar of Coins
I had a jar of coins placed in the bottom cupboard as a child.
I wanted to move away from Ohio to Arizona where it was warm
because our old farmhouse was very cold.
I collected long neck brown Buckeye beer bottles and soda pop bottles and saved the money.
I picked red raspberries by standing on an old galvanized pail because I was too small to
reach the tops of the bushes then I sold them to neighbors for twenty five cents a basket.
Old lady Dolan complained to my Ma that I stuffed paper in the bottom of the basket and
cheated her...but I explained to Ma that it was just a small sheet of papers that I placed
there so the berries would not fall out the basket. this was the time before paper towels
or green plastic berry baskets. I saved this money also.
One day I came home from school and saw I had no coins in the jar.
I asked Ma and she said she took it for food.
Both my parents worked and I thought it unfair that my saved money
was used without my permission ...I would have given it to them if they had asked...
I never saved money from that day on unless I hid it outside buried under a rock.
© 2013 Julia A Knaake
