Bring the potatoes to a boil, now the eggs –
tell them they best not crack. Salt the water
surrounding both. Reserve
a cup when the potatoes are done, barely
fork-tender. Slip them all
from their respective skins, hard and soft.
Next, the sausage: cut to rounds while the
potatoes cool. Skillet-simmer. Stir
the water into the sour cream, retrieve
garlic and paprika and pepper. Wonder:
did my father ever eat this?
Begin the layers, oiled baking dish. Potato,
pepper, garlic. Slice the eggs, yellow eyes
of varying size & intersperse kielbasa coins.
Pour sour cream over; choose to add cheese
now, despite consulted recipes. Repeat.
Top with a scant layer of golden-carb slices
and last of the thinned tartness.
Wonder, again: did my grandmother
ever eat this? Dust with paprika
procured from the homeland. Bake.
(eat the remaining sausage with
some leftover dilly kraut.
Listen
when this sings a need for Akevit up in the brain.
Do a shot
of ‘liquid rye bread’ just before the timer stops)
Ten minutes more: the cream is still too
titanium-white. Marvel at these scents
from a home you didn’t know you needed to know.
Mentally reassert your commitment
to feeding these roots, watching them grow.
My hands are tied
And I’ve stepped to deep
In wet mud that has settled for days
My body starts to sink
And I imagine
I’ll be buried like one of those dandelions
Right here in the cow pasture
I’ll sink even further when the cows come in for feed
There is a pond close by
Maybe I’ll be found there
One day when it expands
This ground ain’t ground anymore
And my body freezes
I don’t put up a fight
I cry but only for what could have been
I cry for relief
Them I’m yanked by the old man
And it’s demeaning
It’s even more of a tragedy
To be saved by an awful person
With no regards
Just a look of,
“You dumbass”
she is birthed in a
sinkhole, a
swallet, a
doline, a
swallow hole.
the more she struggles
the
deeper
she
sinks.
she closes her
eyes, accepts her
fate, her
kismet, her
destiny, her
happenstance.
the less she wrestles
the
higher
she
rises.
she skitters through the
heavens, the
cosmos, the
firmaments, the
universe.
tranquility renders speed
she vanishes in a
blackhole, a
chasm, a
vortex, a
wormhole.
Had I known what you were
when I drew you from the warehouse floor,
I’d have taken note of how you were laying,
but when I did recognize what you were
you were no doubt upright in my hand
and that’s good enough for a surprised novice like me.
I’ve never put much faith in your kind of divination.
It all seemed like a load of well-meaned misunderstandings
thriving on a copious amount of coincidence.
Still, I can’t deny your timely appearance
when the mountains ahead oppressively overshadow me
in the systemic absence of my God and all I’ve believed.
Seems fate has provided me with a weapon.
A supervisor seeks my demotion, or termination,
for daring to question his lackluster leadership.
Thought he gossiped to a trustworthy compatriot
who relayed the news to me as soon as the chance came up,
not far from where I first laid eyes on you.
It is encouraging, and empowering, to know there are still
forces of good willing to fight by my side,
and a fight it will be with a mountain so tall.
But my gratitude will be eternally yours if you
wreath me in the victory you supposedly promise.
I’ll believe in anything that believes in me.
It took him
years to get her
to marry him.
She is twenty years
younger than him,
but he won her heart.
I told him
he was good for her
and he smiled.
“I buy her
$2000 in flowers,”
he told me.
“Everybody tells me
how good my place looks.
She plants them everywhere.”
“And you are good to her.
She needed that,”
I said.
“We go swimming
below your house,”
he said.
He never asked me
to join them.
I don’t blame him.
i drink a liter of cold orange soda
even though it burns my throat
cause i’m not old enough to drink beer yet
i give my sister all my books
even though don’t want to
cause i’m too young to profit off their words
i lay in the sun until it turns to rain
even though i hate the hot and sticky air
cause i’ve got years to waste away
i scribble on my arms with sharpie
even though i know it takes weeks to wash away
cause i don’t know how else to fill my empty spaces
i write gibberish words and choppy sentences
even when i know no one will understand my inside jokes
cause it’s the only way i know to hide my meaning
