ABOUT

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

ARCHIVE

LAGNIAPPE

MAST

SUBMISSIONS

 
THREE POEMS
by Stella Padnos


In The Bedroom

It is the most closed door. A child lives in the hallway between rooms of
secrets. The couple considers themselves above passion. They know to keep
this door locked from their insides. Couples couple in different ways: old,
frail, and nurses to one another; young and one creates the other where he
isn't. Even the living have dead parts, where other forms fill us. Feelings
can cut off your air faster than twine.
The first scene is a boy running and he falls into grass with kisses. The boy
turns, dies, and is replanted. When life leaves the soil, death sits just as
vibrant. Look at what grief makes you notice and lets you forget. The "son"
in Jackson Avenue, the jingling of change louder than words in the mouth.
Money bought his words so the man is left quiet. Everything resumes in the
end. No talk of trials and cemeteries. We speak of SpeedPass. The priest
speaks of Supercuts. The sun shines down the middle of the table and we sit
on its sides, hoping for our reflections back.


Ms. Pacman

When she dies, her body spins.
No weight loss, no bruising.
Chords of declining pitch play, and she disappears.
Enough squeaking through life, enough points
and she is granted an identical body for me to maneuver.
Her replaced self appears, bow on her bald head, ready to begin again.
She doesn't know that more lives wait just outside.
She thrives on what will kill her later:
her own ghosts.
First a pill that makes them edible.
It is found only in corners.

She eats fruit that emerges ripe and random.
Between screens she stars in a musical number.
Don't dare call her "Miss".
She goes in one door, and she comes out a different door.

Her life is safe when ghosts are trapped,
but she is worth less points.
The game is over when she dies at least three times.



Love Worn to Stubs

A water of a room.
Toilet continual in the fill.
A tumbler of water in the mouth, down the sides.
Raining the t.v., female characters in light, unsure of borders.
Their definition missing from dictionaries.
When she's excited, her mouth gets wet.
Her far-sighted glasses make eyelashes bigger than the feeling.
Her neck dry, too much to hold.
The tips of her fingernails red, love worn to stubs.
Her boyfriend said, Why do you watch soap operas?
They are not you. It is Not your life.
She agreed.
But she likes the love stories.
She was a prostitute, but that was six years ago.
Her son looking for her in the street, in motels, under strangers.
Looking at her face, I can't see her.
There is too much on top.
In spandex she hides.
Wears Hard Rock Cafe t-shirts from cities she's never been to.
Now she is afraid of food, of anything that helps.
She won't ask a man for water.
She asks if I'm married, if I share.
I don't.