Sometimes the Smallest Thing

It was ten minutes to closing time at the cell phone store and Gillespie struggled with what to do after work.  He had narrowed his options down to either hanging himself or going to the grocery.  Now he was stuck, since both seemed so appealing.  On one hand, the notion of vegging out in front of the television with a Hungry Man dinner made him breathe deep and flutter his eyelids.  On the other, death’s sweet release was permanent and contained no calories.  He now had eight minutes to decide.

Oh, hell.

An old woman shuffled through the door and it banged against the two-wheeled grocery basket she pulled behind her.  Her hair was platinum and held down with a polka-dotted kerchief.  Gillespie smiled wanly at her, knowing he wouldn’t be leaving on time.

“Need some minutes!” The biddy hollered at him good-naturedly.

“Minutes we have.”  He clicked his mouse.  “What’s your number?”

“How would I know?”  She thrust the phone at him.  “I never call me.”

Gillespie took the phone.  It was covered with something sticky.  He punched up her number.

“How many minutes?”

“Ten bucks worth.”  The bill came at him and he took it.  It was sticky as well.  He completed the transaction as quickly as he could, then turned back to the woman and froze.

The old lady held a banana, and it was pointed directly at his heart.

“Take it.  They were on sale at Kroger.  Strawberries and oranges, too.”

He took it and thanked her, and she and her cart banged out the door and down the sidewalk.

In his car fifteen minutes later, Gillespie peeled the banana and considered his options.

He hadn’t eaten a strawberry in twenty years, and today they were on sale.

 

by Robert L. Penick

 

Robert Penick’s work has appeared in over 100 different literary magazines, including The Hudson Review, North American Review, and China Grove. He lives in Louisville, KY, with his free-range box turtle, Sheldon.

Raychelle Lodato

Watercolors

 

Some days I’m convinced

It’s the pain that makes me real.

Reminding me I’m breathing.

That I am happy to be here.

That I am strong… but some days

 

Some days it spits and hisses,

and I just can’t love it when I feel so fragile.

It is replaying a slow beautiful loop of misery

Thundering down paper skin

sparks are bursting through the surface

and they are arranging themselves

into prickly and asymmetrical patterns

 

I close my eyes and I am rocking gently

counting the notes of this symphony

but my breath is coming in waves again

Those wild gulps are cresting the dam I’ve built

A dam made of “I can do it”s and porcelain

For a moment I give in and lean against it

Pressing my cheek on the cold reality of it

Hoping it will hold a while longer

But I can feel it giving, rubble is littering my lap again.

 

I’m trying to bite back a weakness

but my face heats as I feel the tears

It’s gone feral again

and in all its uncontrolled glory

It is flinging ugliness at my skin

It splatters and spreads like watercolors

Painting everything I touch a sick eggplant color

and leaving copper on my bitten tongue

 

Because I don’t look fucking sick Do I?!

I’m a tough girl!

It’s been this way so long…

Haven’t I gotten used to it?

 

Some days

Well, some days it just surprises me

 

 

You See Yourself

 

i see you, i see you seeing yourself

i wish I could see if you pick at the fuzz

on the arm of your sweater

when you read what I write,

that’s what I imagine

and yes I imagine too much

so much

picnics and fresh air and fresh fruit and fresh smiles

dark nights and warm fires and

really

good

books,

 

books that you might actually read,

because you read things.

and you would remind me that i imagine too much

 

so much

 

but its never quite enough

i find myself spinning in your footsteps

like a vacuum

picking up whatever you have dropped

breathing it in with a whir and a grin

because like a vacuum,

yes either kind,

i am hungry

and empty

and always trying to fill myself

 

with

your

self

 

and if i was a betting woman,

and i am,

i would place money on the he loves you petals

 

because he does

 

at least in some small way

or you wouldn’t be reading this,

you wouldn’t be trying to figure out

how to stuff all these very visible feelings

back in between lines,

the lines i read between to get them.

 

Maybe we speak different languages,

maybe you don’t speak…

i worry a lot,

so much,

i should start a therapy group.

i wouldn’t invite you

of course

you would already occupy so much of that hour.

 

by Raychelle Lodato

 

Raychelle Lodato is a 36yr-old mother, wife, and poet who writes under the names Cybilseyes and Diminished.Me

Stephen Cloud

Broken Main

 

Someone from Taft Hall calls it in:

flooded grass, stranded cars.

More trouble with the water main.

Every week, the old iron pipe

rusts through somewhere and bursts,

swamping campus lawns and parking lots.

 

Same old, same old, says the boss

when we reach the scene, three of us

squeezed onto the truck’s bench seat,

staring at the task ahead.

Water bubbles from a spring hole

and spills down the sidewalk.

Lot A has turned into a small lake.

 

Years ago it was all play time,

splashing around in pools like this.

With the blackbirds I looked for worms;

then an afternoon at the creek

waiting for fish to bite.

Now sloshing is part of the job.

 

Turn off the main, drive down to the shop,

wait for the water to recede a bit.

Lunch and Paul Harvey on the radio

until the boss says, Max and Stephens

get on up there, dig us a hole.

 

With each shovelful, water sucks back in.

Boots soak through, feet prune up.

 

An hour later, our little triad stares down

at exposed pipe, a six-inch split.

Max kneels in the muck to work the hacksaw.

The boss heads back to the shop to fetch some parts.

 

People watch our work from office windows,

sipping coffee, looking cool in air conditioning.

One suit grins and gives the thumbs-up.

 

We’re still at it when the secretaries

leave for the day. The boss doffs his hat

and says Ma’am as they pass.

We watch them mince down the sidewalk,

gingerly picking a path around puddles.

The prettiest one slips off her shoes

and tiptoes barefoot to an islanded Mustang—

a real beauty, one slick ride.

 

Come on now, the boss says,

no looking at the ladies.

We got work to do.

 

Another four hours and

the busted pipe’s replaced,

the hole refilled, the lawn spruced up.

The summer sun has already set.

 

Turning on the main again, we know

the next weak spot down the line

will start to feel the pressure,

ready to burst. Give it a week

and we’ll find out where.

 

 

Visiting the Asylum

 

Noises outside: the beating of wings,

a persistent caw, caw, caw.

From the window I see

the evening sun—bloody

through the branches of a dead tree,

a crow perched near the top,

a groundskeeper crossing the leaf-filled lawn.

 

What did I expect to learn,

making this pilgrimage

just to visit his former room?

 

There’s passing chatter in the corridor,

the clacking wheels of a cart.

Somewhere a phone rings and rings,

a door clicks shut, footsteps fade.

 

Did he, too, hear the bird’s mockery?

Did it foretell renewed anxieties,
the advent of the crisis moment?

Did he stumble to this pane,

peering through the mist

of breath on glass, wondering

who called his name?

 

I imagine the anguish

when desperate for an answer

from God he gazed

upon this hysterical crow

and the black-garbed groundskeeper

now steadfastly lowering the flag.

 

 

by Stephen Cloud

After kicking around the West for a while (with stops in Spokane, Flagstaff, and Sedona), Stephen Cloud has settled in Albuquerque, where he’s fixing up an old adobe, working on poems, and pondering the official New Mexico state question: “Red or green?” Recent publications include work in Valparaiso Poetry Review, High Desert Journal, New Madrid, Shenandoah, and Tar River Poetry.

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