I DIED SOMEWHERE TERRIBLE BETWEEN NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY
Originally published in Mount Hope Magazine, Issue 15, Spring 2019
My last thought was that everyone would know
that I didn’t know how to cook.
One moon-sized waste of Italian blood.
Someone has to take care of the garbage, I thought.
My newest remnants, the last primary sources of my energy.
Trash. Empty, microwaved dinner boxes.
What a title someone will get—
took out the garbage for deceased pal after she wound up
down for the count from February ice,
good for nothing except spilt hearts and a spilt head.
I shouldn’t have been running, but in that moment
the Lifetime movie waiting to happen
was lurking somewhere close
somewhere touchable–
So, I began to train for the next Olympics
and counted every four steps for every four years
and every four beats of my heart
for every one breath of the man
who walked too close
and spooked me, cat under car,
into the stacked garbage cans
of a side street somewhere the tourists don’t go
beneath the moon.
What a waste of Italian blood.