by Jillian Keifer, Creative Writing

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No child support again

 

So we put meat and cheese on stale bread,

watch the rotations of a misbegotten microwave

conjure magic and make pizza

poorly constructed but with enough sticky,

curly hair and sweat from a twelve hour shift

to make it palatable.

 

Like cockroaches, we flutter from house to house cramped

in areas where little kids sneak water and potatoes,

our heads cut off, speaking a language passed down,

erased, revived, kissing the backs of palms,

blessings.

 

If we crouch around a movie,

paper plates burning our thighs,

then we can pretend we’re in a real restaurant

and Mama won’t go to bed teary eyed,

glass shards in her heel, aching

for something none of us can give.

 

We eat.

 

 

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I WROTE THIS BEFORE I REALIZED I DON’T HAVE A LICENSE

 by Jillian Keifer, Creative Writing 

We’re surviving,

but my eyes are drooping and

thin, dry veins convulsing

because of the energy drink you gave me,

let go of the steering wheel

and let the deflated tire under your sleeping body

gently push us towards the thin piece of aluminum

dividing us from the Gulf.

 

Maybe when we’re submerged in those cold,

murky waters we can forget car payments,

loans burying our parents,

no calls from job interviews,

hours we spent transforming into perfect

recollections of plastic and gummy smiles.

Instead, we’re calm and watch oxygen

from our tarred lungs tickle decayed felt ceilings.

 

I told you,

brother,

I would drive first and we could take turns,

but I can go further.

I have to go until I’m told to stop,

Congratulated. When I’ve made the ideal

home for you where no one

stuffs burnt, coppery tongues into empty

cookie tins to stop asking questions

about going hungry or swallowing service

to a bloated corpse to become a person

worth speaking to.