oddstrike

Anabelle Sue woke up with a bright white bandage around her head.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Why, you’ve been struck by lightening dear!” exclaimed her mother, happy to see her daughter open her eyes.

“What are the odds? What are the odds sis?” asked her brother. “Well, they’ve got to be about 10000 to 1, at least.”

Anabelle stood up and smiled for her family. “Hmm, I don’t know. I feel fine” she said and walked out of the hospital.

She called her voicemail and found she had 10 messages. Her boyfriend said “What are the odds baby? What are the odds?!” Her cousin said “I’ve never known someone stuck by lightening before. What are the odds of that?!”

She stopped listening to her messages.

The second lightening bolt stuck her three days later. She was walking through the grocery store parking lot to her car when she realized she forgot to buy some hummus. As she turned around she felt light and energy in her bones. She drove herself to the hospital.

“What are the odds!” said the doctor. “Well they have to be about 4.000.000- to 1!”

“Amazing” said the local paper. “Has this ever happened before ? What are the odds?”

“I really don’t know” said Anabelle. “I feel fine.”

The third and fourth lightening bolts came in the backyard playing badminton and at a toll stop on the interstate, respectively. Anabelle Sue felt the fourth travel from her shoulder to her arm, tingling straight to her fingers.

“I know you,” said the woman at the toll booth. “You just keep on getting struck by lightening! Golly, what are the odds?”

The fifth lightening bolt was what sent her into the national news. Soon talk shows were calling and reporters were lining up outside of her door. “It has to be about 10 trillion to 1” they would mumble.

Their eyes would open wide when they saw her. She had not a hair out of place. “I don’t know” she would say. “I feel fine.”

It was on Oprah, the day after the sixth bolt, that Anabelle Sue wanted to end it all.

“This woman has been through so much” said Oprah. “Struck by lightening 6 times? What on earth are the odds of that?”

“I…. I don’t…. I don’t know” said Anabelle Sue.

Back stage, a woman dressed in a black suit and polka dot scarf motioned Anabelle Sue over to the side.

The two women stared at one another, not knowing what to say. Finally:

“One in 3,000 for people who live to be 80, according to National Weather Service statistics based on Census information.” said the woman.

“I’m sorry?” said Anabelle Sue.

“The odds. Those are the odds. To be, you know, struck by lightening. The first time anyway” said the woman. “Are you okay?”

Anabelle threw her arms around the woman and hugged her as tight as she could. “Thank you,” she said.

“I’ve been attacked by a shark 3 times” said the woman.

The two held hands and exited the building.

sex and haiku

Short dress with sequins
three martinis tonight
end in wet kisses

my body betrays
his hips are familiar
I cannot say no

Spinning ceiling tiles
where does your body stop and
where does mine begin?

The sunshine makes three
white morning twisted bed sheets
hair a careless mess

the perils of being a waitress

two dollars
two dollars shoved under
my black paybook
the ones the other servers use
to do lines of coke in the bathroom.
I am not so naive
I know what goes on around here.
not a day goes by
without a man twice my age
looking me
up
and
down
asking me for my number.
I want to scream at them
‘I’m not a piece of ass,
I have two degrees!
I am going to teach at university
in a place you’ve never heard of
and then law school
without my daddy’s dime.
I have been halfway across the world and back.
I’ve made love in paris and hong kong
do you think I care about your stuffy
law office or balding republican friends?’
but I keep my mouth shut
and take my two dollars.
after all,
at least I don’t have
a cocaine habit to support.

loose ends

I’ve got so many loose ends hanging around these days I’m dropping words on the ground getting caught up in shoelaces where kiss and miss become mass devastation if anyone even bothers to look

they sizzle and pop when stepped on

my loose ends; his regrets my, loosen his regrets it all comes down to the fact that
I am completely
and utterly
forgettable.

guarantee

Nothing had felt as comfortable as the cloth interior of the car. She sank down into it, her hip nestling against the buckle of the seatbelt. She felt soft lips kiss her cheek and say “goodnight darling, drive safely” before the door slammed, leaving her another place to rest a tired elbow.

He turned the keys in the ignition and the windshield wipers began moving fast across the glass. He turned them off; he sighed as he sank into his seat. He looked at her and her false eyelashes dangling from one eye. “Did you have a good time?” he asked.

“Yes. I hope I didn’t act too stupid” she replied, eyes still shut, slouched in the car seat.

“Maybe one less black Russian would have been better for you” he said. “Things were going fine until you started waxing poetic about the difference between freedom fighters and terrorists and how Louisa May Alcott changed the world."

She fluttered her eyes open. All the streetlights were big blurry balls of fuzzy light, whizzing past in fast fury. She looked at his dark curls and then closed her eyes again. “It was fun though” she said. “It was really fun.”

She remembered dancing in the apartment, admiring the large modern painting in the hall. She remembered sampling the babaganoush and loving the hostess' new eyeliner. The boys were getting high on the balcony. She tugged on the top of her new cocktail dress, allowing the strap to slip down her forearm. It started to rain again.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“We are going home, kitten,” he replied. “I am taking you home.”

:more work:

Charles never told anyone that the happiest he had ever been in his life was when he was 8 years old and spent most of his day blowing dandelions and searching for four leaf clovers. It was not that he did not want to reflect on such happy memories, it was moreso that he was disappointed in his lack of fulfillment since before puberty.

This is a serious moment. Charles puts on his long black tie and stiff black coat. There are no dandelions in the snow. They don’t grow when the cold comes. He is scared of getting older in the snow. It makes your bones weak, they say. He was built to be in the sunshine.

His father, before this devastation, had been a member of the Florida State Legislature. A law man, revered in his profession. His most famous laws concerned crab boats and licenses. He protected the sailors. People think about sailors when they are in the sunshine. They may not even think that dandelions are all around. Well, some people don’t have that luxury.

Just before Christmas when the school broke up for month, Charles had left Florida in a fit of desperation. Maybe it was the constant barrage of dandelions. Maybe it was the sailors and their families and the Christmas cards. Charles also had an affinity for prescription medication, and that may have had something to do with it.

“Any poet who does not know how many rhymes each word has is incapable of expressing an idea!” he shouted to his father who seemed healthy in the sunshine but would have been a sight in the snow. Charles respected his father but would never let him know it. His extremes showed vulnerability that the cold weather magnifies. Charles had never seen 20 below.

“He sees us waving” said Charles’ mother as he made his way. Charles saw nothing. He had the sun in his eyes. By the time he got there, the cold had made a home. Time ran. The snow never melts without sunshine. The phone call said it all. A day after meeting with the U.S security council ambassadors, Charles’ father was diagnosed with skin cancer. Straight to the black tie he went.

Charles puts on his long black tie and stiff black coat. It’s a serious moment. Will they leave the casket open? he wonders while he looks in the mirror. There was an awful pause. His boots were wet from the snowflakes and ice.

The sun is cold and unforgiving. The bouquet of dandelions is naked once he enters the southern states. Kneeling down at a truck stop near the Chattahoochee river he finds one four leaf clover.

.. meditation on higher education..

They say “look around, one of the people sitting on either side of you won’t be here in 4 years”. you look. of course you look. but just looking is your first mistake. because its not just looking. and that’s what you learn. you learn about how looking was a mistake. and you can’t fix your mistake. you can look again and see what happens. you can try not to look anymore. you can look for meaning in the bottom of a martini. you can look for meaning in the bottom of many, many martinis. you can look at her eyes and their deep deep spark and crack. you can look out your window and see the light pollution from the too-big round lampposts, and fast cars and corduroy pants. you can turn pages and pages without looking at all. it is looking that is your mistake. it is looking that you have to do. its not a choice anymore. “did you look” everyone asks. everyone just wants to know how you look and what do you see. what do you see. what do you see? what do you see.