Julie Cadwallader-Staub
As if your cancer weren't enough,
the guinea pig is dying.
The kids brought him to me
wrapped in a bath towel
‘Do something, Mom.
Save his life.'
I'm a good mom.
I took time from work,
drove him to the vet,
paid $77.00 for his antibiotics.
Now, after the kids rush off to school,
you and I sit on the bed.
I hold the guinea pig, since he bites.
You fill the syringe.
We administer the foul smelling medicine,
hoping the little fellow will live.
admitting to each other:
if he doesn't,
it'll be good practice.
"Guinea Pig" by Julie Cadwallader-Staub. Reprinted without permission from The Writers Almanac.
As if your cancer weren't enough,
the guinea pig is dying.
The kids brought him to me
wrapped in a bath towel
‘Do something, Mom.
Save his life.'
I'm a good mom.
I took time from work,
drove him to the vet,
paid $77.00 for his antibiotics.
Now, after the kids rush off to school,
you and I sit on the bed.
I hold the guinea pig, since he bites.
You fill the syringe.
We administer the foul smelling medicine,
hoping the little fellow will live.
admitting to each other:
if he doesn't,
it'll be good practice.
"Guinea Pig" by Julie Cadwallader-Staub. Reprinted without permission from The Writers Almanac.
***
Looking at Pictures to Be Put Away
Gary Snyder
Who was this girl
In her white night gown
Clutching a pair of jeans
On a foggy redwood deck.
She looks up at me tender,
Calm, surprised,
What will we remember
Bodied thick with food and lovers
After twenty years.
"Looking at Pictures to Be Put Away" by Gary Snyder, from The Back Country. (c) New Directions, 1957. Reprinted without permission from The Writers Almanac.
***
One Night
Jeremy Voigt
The car crossed two lanes of traffic
and a grass median before plowing
head-on into me, killing my wife,
unborn child, and myself. Before
I died I touched the shoulder
of a policeman, felt the sure strength
of his muscles, heard the only word
he spoke, "Jesus," and I smiled
because I stopped believing in him
long ago. He mistook my smile
for something positive and not listless
irony, and I tried to correct him,
but my throat stopped. Red lights.
Blue lights. Star's gases. I walked home.
My wife wandered off into a river
to give birth. I began calling my friends:
"We are all dead," I said into the phone.
I let them cry or exalt in turn, taking
note. I didn't know it would be this
simple. I slipped into a midnight robe,
poked holes in a black sheet, tore
into a loaf of bread. Wandered off
yeast-heavy neither rising nor falling.
"One Night" by Jeremy Voigt, from Neither Rising nor Falling. (c) Finishing line Press, 2009. Reprinted without permission from The Writers Almanac.
The car crossed two lanes of traffic
and a grass median before plowing
head-on into me, killing my wife,
unborn child, and myself. Before
I died I touched the shoulder
of a policeman, felt the sure strength
of his muscles, heard the only word
he spoke, "Jesus," and I smiled
because I stopped believing in him
long ago. He mistook my smile
for something positive and not listless
irony, and I tried to correct him,
but my throat stopped. Red lights.
Blue lights. Star's gases. I walked home.
My wife wandered off into a river
to give birth. I began calling my friends:
"We are all dead," I said into the phone.
I let them cry or exalt in turn, taking
note. I didn't know it would be this
simple. I slipped into a midnight robe,
poked holes in a black sheet, tore
into a loaf of bread. Wandered off
yeast-heavy neither rising nor falling.
"One Night" by Jeremy Voigt, from Neither Rising nor Falling. (c) Finishing line Press, 2009. Reprinted without permission from The Writers Almanac.
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