A Kind of Suffocation
by Jayne Pupek
(i)
The tinderbox is a blue Buick. I didn’t mean to leave
the baby in the car. The temperature rose and swallowed the whole
thermometer. The authorities said
she couldn’t be buried with the coffin lid off. Who was I to ask this thing?
(ii)
Reason is a red thread splitting like a hair; it won’t hold up for long.
New things are always in the works. Like those
self-stick postage stamps, and dolls that piss and burp.
(iii)
I walked all the way to the river once,
but didn’t have the nerve to jump.
That particular Sunday, the murky smell of a dead turtle
made me cry on the bank. I sat in shit-colored
mud and dug flesh from shell
to keep ants from eating it.
(iv)
In third grade, a girl came to school every day
wearing plastic teeth. We held her down in the bathroom
because we wanted to see what was hiding inside her mouth.
Behind plastic teeth were black holes and some kind
of forced sound that made me think of hinges.
A locked car door and my red-fisted baby inside, gasping.
(v)
I meant to thank you for showing me
the pictures inside your wallet. Listen, Mister,
would it be all right, just for one night,
if I slept with your thumb in my mouth?
____________________________________
Jayne Pupek is the author of the novel, “Tomato Girl” (Algonquin Books, 2008) and a book of poems titled “Forms of Intercession” (Mayapple Press, 2008). Her second poetry collection, “The Livelihood of Crows,” is forthcoming from Mayapple Press later this year. Her writing has appeared in numerous literary journals. In addition to her own writing, Jayne freelances as a ghostwriter, editor and mentor. A Virginia native, Jayne has spent most of her professional life working in the field of mental health.
