The Albino Dingo Cat, Creamhussy Pokrass
Cream Pokrass hussy cat
I came back from the funeral and crawled
around the apartment, crying hard,
searching for my wife’s hair.
For two months got them from the drain,
from the vacuum cleaner, under the refrigerator,
and off the clothes in the closet.
But after other Japanese women came,
there was no way to be sure which were
hers, and I stopped. A year later,
repotting Michiko’s avocado, I find
a long black hair tangled in the dirt.
Tepid Everything by Meg Pokrass He liked the color of every room and wanted to be called Clark even though his first name was Templeton. I imagined his inscription on towels… It was probably the grass, coming up for air again and Clark tending to ramble about what really mattered. Ma said he was the type of skittery teenager who’d grow up to sell insurance. I was still young and slim and had many secrets to gnaw on. “Tepid everything,” dad would boom. I saw it coming.
Warning: this story is not about a cat — He: You drinking, acting. Is nothing here but a house and two people who like each other. She: I do not want to know what it is like to have testicles. He: OK. Look, walk to the center and drop your dumb hat, I want to see your hair now. All of it, grown in. She: Nobody. Folds towels, ce’pt me, so let me do that first. We’ll do the hair thing… later. He: I want it now. No waiting. The house hates me. She: It’s, what… angry? Why is it angry?
Congratulations to Jacqueline, whose story “Honeymoon” was chosen by guest judge Richard Peabody as last week’s winner! She wins the Press 53 publication of her choice, plus a chance at getting her story published in Prime Number Magazine. Check out the winning story below.
Honeymoon
We are…
This week’s guest judge is Cooper Renner! In 2012, Ravenna Press published Cooper Renner’s novella, Disbelief, and a selection of his drawings in Triple No. 1. His story “Coyotes” will appear later this year in the anthology NewBorder (Texas A&M University Press). His poetry appears…
“There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be …”
—John Lennon, from “All You Need Is Love,” lyrics credited to Lennon-McCartney (Parlophone, 1967)
BROKEN
Whenever you pull out the desk drawer, you leave it open
Whenever you write, you never cap the pen
Oh my darling, you’re so absent-minded
My wild forest deerEverything should have happened smoothly
We should have become husband and wife
If we hadn’t taken a chance
A chance like we took tonight
When after a peaceful time
Enjoying ourselves on a stone bench at the park
You didn’t button my shirt over my breastsDu Thi Hoan
translated by Ho Anh Thai & Wayne Karlin
