One of Us
A sucker-punch thought,
we will end.
The assault turns into a cold sweat
from the contours of my couch.
One day we might fight over
the over-due mortgage,
you promised to pay.
The dent in the new hallway’s paint,
I never denied.
Who keeps the dog
when we sell the house?
We fought the morning
a bus crashed into the glass store.
The highway exit was blocked
and first responders’ lights spun.
I read on my phone that no one’s hurt
and we held hands the drive home.
What if we’d decided
to replace the glass in the tv stand
an hour earlier.
The first time I wrote this
you sat next to me on the couch.
TV commentaries must-know insight,
scores on your phone,
notes for a fantasy,
but you won’t remember this morning
as anything distinguishable
from the other bubble-gum memories
wadded in your head.
**
Find Joy, Tell Her She’s Wrong
I believe
I struggle to write
because of the vacuum
encaged in my ribs
is filled by anxiety air
thick as pudding
pink as pills.
I think
I lack subjectivity
(and objectivity)
because most days
I see cracked-gray skies
rotted dirt
and branches days away
from dust.
I’m told
it’s a lovely day
by pink-cheek neighbors
who see the world
as a God-given playground.
They say go
before my tongue
tsks, tsks away
their golden sun
artificial turf
outdoor brick barbeques
and they
too
are stricken with
the clogged chest vacuums
the head-disconnections
without the cold medicine
and their lives
are drained
of color.
I measure
how thick the air feels.
Today I can’t move
beyond the nook
of my couch.
**
Tall Grass in the Livingroom Aunt Winnie’s oil painting hangs over the electric fireplace. When I was a child it hung over my parents’ hearth. I watched it for hours. I fished from a rowboat with the boys in a cove framed in golden wood. The artist was my grandma’s twin. She painted it for their mom who passed the brushwork to my mom. When I was in college Grandma gave Mom a second painting, three boys, fishing poles, a red barn. When I married and settled in my house, she gifted me the scenes. Aunt Winnie painted the barn, then the cove, because they asked for an order. I believe the boys in her work are the boys walking past the barn with fishing poles to the cove where the rowboat waits. I believe but I don’t know. I can only see their backs by the barn, and they’re too far away in the boat. I can’t see the noses, bug bites, untied shoes, or bare feet, and I can’t ask the artist.
***
Kathryn V. Jacopi, an adjunct professor, received her MFA in creative writing from Fairfield University. Her writings have appeared in Pudding Magazine, Statorec, Fjord, Manzano Mountain Review, and Drunk Monkeys. Kathryn’s poem received first place for the 2016 Hysteria Writing Competition. When she’s not reading, writing, and lesson planning, Kathryn’s either kayaking or enjoying her spouse’s fantastic cooking. This is Kathryn’s first publication in Fictional Café.
