Three Poems by Cat Dixon

That’s a day you’ll never get back: parked on the side of the road 

People forget: the life of the party, the frail farce, the unopened
            parachute, the blue sky that opens with precision, the matches
            floating in the dirty pool.

 

You don’t deserve: notice for no notice is the new notice, an oaf

dipped in brandy, a barge carrying a garbage fire, a welcome from

a hologram, the fruity overtones of desert sage, the lie based on

the truth: where do you go all day when you disappear?  

 

The one that criticizes travels through walls. It’s all weddings and lies
           planted in the rose garden. It’s nautical-themed and it cradles
           the crone, it jugs the beer, it tosses the baby off the cliff.

 

Months go by 

 

What’s all this then?

                        Lead me, lead me by the arm, lead me down the hall, lead me

                        through backstage, lead me to the gavel, lead me to the backlot.

 

Who’s going to be left behind?

                        I cannot tell a lie. Nothing comes to mind except tiny ketchup

                        bottles, protected wetlands, mashies and niblicks, rides

                        on rollercoasters, sugar water, and a giant hedge maze.

 

Why would I take that away from her?

                        Advance me to the second round, intervene on my behalf, summon

                        the devil, slice me in half, stab me in the belly, cover up these

                        charming little traditions, help pick up the loose change.

 

What now?

                        Leave my virtue intact, leave me to this dangerous agenda, to

                        the loopholes I craft, to the former rival who sits in a chair

                        in the dark without realizing the light bulb is cracked.

 

When the Acquaintance Asks Why I Didn’t Change My Last Name 

 

If I’ve been married once, I’ve been married a dozen times. If that’s the case, I refuse to change it for I know I will just have to change it back. I’d rather keep the name that’s typed on my yellow tattered Hawaiian birth certificate. Retain the same name I entered this shitshow with— what’s the point? No sense in changing names, hair color, jobs, or clothes. It’s all a march down the aisle—I’m waiting for the organ to finish with a flourish, for the priest to say amen, for the congregation to stand, so I can be hauled off in a hearse, back to the dirt where we all came from.

Cat Dixon is the author of What Happens in Nebraska (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2022) along with six other poetry chapbooks and collections. She is a poetry editor with The Good Life Review. Recent poems published in The Literary Underground, Nude Bruce, and The Rye Whiskey Review. She works full-time at a funeral home and teaches creative writing part-time at the University of Nebraska, Omaha.