ISSUE VI

Short as rolls of cold butter,

he fists my hand into a fist

and asks if I could get my mother’s

approval to let us visit

the amusement park (but we would lie about going

and go lie next to each other on his friend’s bed).

Now that I recall, my mother has always been half

an accomplice in my plans. She knows only half 

of why I cannot sleep without the cover

all the way above my head.

So she tells me not letting the air get in

will overheat the gut and disturb my bowels.

She remembers her father being particular

with medicine, especially homeopathy, he would start

immediately after the first symptoms. 

Anyways, he cured with a whip 

what he couldn’t with sweet little globules

doused in alcohol (the chemical kind). 

When I yell at her it sounds like I am running in

through a mile-long fog and even though I say

something like you set my bones on fire

I only mean Let no one tell you that you dream from your gut.

But my mother is half fog-machine, half lighthouse –

Beams, never settling in a row for long enough.

To her, dreaming is like pulling a sheet over me 

and not stopping until it has reached the curtain rod overhead, 

waiting to latch on to the rings and remain stretched over my body. 

Now, will I hope? Certainly not.

Will I read to all the guys (yes, my grandfather too), who say

Well, if a girl is sick, she can just put her head down?