Hole Shapes
Wet
webs blanket the grass in mornings
in
Scotland and North America. Congealed
dew.
Plasticine rain. No scientists can
agree
on the composition. It contains no DNA
or
known origin. Nature writers of old
called
it star jelly, with the thought
shooting
stars had a byproduct. No—not
byproduct,
remnant, a memory before
they
sped on. A hearty slime painting
the
planet below. We know now
what
is too distant, what burns too much
up,
but we’re still no closer to an answer
than
that old story.
In
1996, in Arizona, cars speed on by
suburban
intersections, bent poles
like
arthritis where stop signs should be.
Not
natural causes, but yanked by human hands.
I,
a child, wanting to know
the
comings and goings of all things,
asked
my mother as she was driving
who
would do such a thing –
make
a wound metallic where order should be.
And
my mother said that people take,
you
know, what isn’t theirs to take,
because
they don’t need it.
They
think, Well, I’ve already stopped,
I
don’t need this anymore. So they
get
out of their cars and just take the sign.
I
harrumphed, too young to need a story.
There
are many reasons to feign delicacy.
One
is to turn fault lines into jokes.
One
is to see how fluid catches light
and
call it from the stars.
One
is to account for the place a stone is
instead of a mother’s love.
Watching Perry Mason with a Mouth Full of Vomit
We call my grandmother as she is dying,
long distance, my sister and I. What is
there to say? It's been a decade, we're sorry
you're dying, remember us? Even
though I am on my cellphone, I am picturing
cords spanning continents, curling
like umbilicals, ribbons
on a welcome basket, sashes
on a casket. I want to tell my grandmother
I, too, have tether now,
there is a fourth. My body
is like the hospital my grandmother
is at: not a place for getting stronger,
just where the fragile go to die.
My sister is on the phone too, and I
don't want to be a further disappointment.
My sister and I say, We love you, we're here.
My grandmother croaks, I don't feel so good,
and the rest is all vowels. She can
no longer swallow. Choking, gurgling,
her mouth the deepest cave.
I tell her that we can't understand,
the connection is static (a white lie).
I'm glad we got through. She dies
the next day. I take three tums
instead of two, the heartburn tearing
harder in my chest. Mourning sickness.
I turn on Perry Mason, even though
that channel has tons of static. I watch
what could be any episode with a mouth full of vomit.
Because Perry always knows what to say,
so articulate, so calm, perfect Transatlantic.
The truth will out, justice will be served.
Perry gets the last word in before the credits roll.
And everything, everything is tied up neatly
with a bow. Here, death is
always sudden, even sexy.
Nadia Arioli is the co-founder and
editor in chief of Thimble Literary Magazine. Their recent publications include
Penn Review, Hunger Mountain, Cider Press Review, Kissing Dynamite, Heavy
Feather Review, and San Pedro River Review. They have chapbooks from
Cringe-Worthy Poetry Collective, Dancing Girl Press, Spartan, and a full-length
from Luchador. They were nominated for Best of the Net in 2021 by As It Ought
to Be, West Trestle Review, Angel Rust, and Voicemail Poems.
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