By Mureall Hebert
Blitz
Mother strung blackout curtains
to the ceiling using clothespins and duct tape
and duct tape
and safety pins
and nicotine stains
spit up
balled up
up chucked
and sticky.
“It’s a blitz!” she wailed under the strobe light
looking [almost] beautiful
and limber
and wild
and free.
Her tube top caught on the
corner
of her chest. Heart-beat,
rib-thump,
rump-grind,
silky, slick
skin.
Her wine came in a box
and showered from her lips
a fine bouquet: 1988, San Jose
plucked from a flea-market bin.
Pills and wine and music and pills
and
wine and music and pills
and
why not,
why else,
and who the hell cares?
I could sell you for a dime
or more wine
if you’d just stand still long enough for me to catch you.
But no!
I lodged myself
in a | crack |
under the stairs.
caterpillar, cockroach, baby doll where are you?
Hours strolled by
and by and by the large man who came to rescue me
was not a man
but a jackal
dressed in pinstripes
charcoal
and ashes
on his soul
spouting fables
of new homes,
chandeliers,
and swimming pools
f i l l e d with twenty dollar bills.
But the | crack | suited me fine.
I was a caterpillar,
a cockroach,
her baby doll.
and she cried as the jackal ate me
—sob, sob, sob—
but her tears
stuck
halfway
down
her
face
“hard light” © relaxkid55 (https://www.flickr.com/photos/32183619@N05/5403105505)
Magical Thinking
Janie believed
in magical thinking
so when her boyfriend
spread her arms
and asked if she’d like to fly
she took it literal
when she saw the syringe
in his hand she ran
away from the sharpness
of his suggestion
thinking if she could get
ahead of the wind
it would lift her to the sky
but the best she could do
was a series of petite allegros
that left her breathless
Beautiful sighed a homeless man
on the corner
She’s Venus come to life.
But no one heard him
past the scabs on his lips
Alone in the bustling streets
Janie bent
hands on knees
and let her heart lub-dub
against her ribs
A coin glinted
among dirty wrappers lining the gutter
Miracles happen Janie said
She spent the money
on a tin of ravioli
eating dinner on the edge
of the Seine
By morning she was gone
leaving behind an empty can
and a homeless man’s memory
of a girl who could soar
Mureall Hebert is a writer and editor near Seattle, Washington. Her work has appeared in Five 2 One Magazine, Reflex Fiction, Apeiron Review, The Blotter, Yellow Chair Review, decomP, Crack the Spine, Lunch Ticket, and Bartleby Snopes, among others. She holds an MFA from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts. You can find her online at @mureallhebert.
