"...i thought the year from hell was finally turning around ..."

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katrina recommends these on line literary sites.

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Contact
ms. craig

why tall chicks with big tits should not
go shopping for video cameras in tank tops

can i help you?

slick salesman eyes never meet mine
slide from lcd to tv to big screen
display of big turquoise breasts. everywhere.
in black and white in pixelated color from
the left from the right from straight on
full speed ahead

my air conditioned nipples crowd larger than life
size catching the eyes of harried husbands
frat boys piqued by no interest 'til december
the girl with a nose ring manning the counter.





on the eve of your mastectomy

i have a photo of us as children in new
mexico -- age six and already set in our
ways. you neat and tidy, tucked in, hair pulled
back off your face. me with clothes twisted,
tights baggy in the knees, hair in desperate
need of a brush. it's my doll, half dressed,
that's falling out of the stroller; your round red
case full of i don't remember what.

you stand straight, face forward smiling
into the camera like a good girl. my eyes
are half closed; i slouch, looking elsewhere.

i never imagined it would be your
perfectly ordered body to turn on
itself -- that your perfectly formed, most
properly contained breast would shield
such disarray.





shrugged it off

it was pretty clear from the beginning he didn't like
me and preferred my beautiful and charming sister but
that was okay because i was his wife's favorite
and when i got punished for fighting in the bed even though
she started it or when i was tickled until i was crying through
my protestations or when he turned the channel even though
he knew i was watching it i shrugged it off and found refuge
in the kitchen, sitting on the corner of the cabinets banging
my heels against the doors and listening to my grandmother
as she cooked

after she died i still visited the old man cooking the
things i had learned in his kitchen serving him on a
tray in front of the television never asking him to
change the channel and jumping up to get his seconds
and when he called me a bitch because i didn't eat meat
and when he shook his head in disgust at my tattoos and
when he told me i deserved what i had gotten for a husband
i shrugged it off and found refuge in the kitchen, washing
the dishes and looking at the ceramic birds my grandmother
had left on the windowsill

and when he waited until i was visiting to shuffle to
the bathroom and slit his wrists while sitting on the
toilet waited until after i spent thirty dollars on
books on tape for him waited until i thought the year
from hell was finally turning around i shrugged it off
and found refuge in the kitchen, making rice krispies
squares and potato salad for the people he had loved