The Party
By Ally Harris
I get beer from the public fridge. How crowded it is with everyone I’ve ever worked with downstairs at the party. Jack is up in my room crying and my cell she keeps scrolling Wiener waits for dead at age 51 Wiener stays divided in several political areas Wiener stoops to not kosher :(
I really need Jack’s help but I hate all this femmy-la-la pooping tears from the ducts, no wet exchange for yours truly. I put Blackberry in Froot Loops sans milk to come back later. Someone put the wrong kind of mushrooms on Dad’s burger and everyone’s freaking out including him so he’s outside doing Tai Chi like a barbiturate cat whose stomach drags and he bites bites bites but you love him anyway. He tried to make me check his pulse so I slapped him slap he can’t argue cuz it seems to do the trick.
I can smell noodles we have so many noodles for my party lasagna penne farfalle linguine and regular with cheese so I kiss Dad on the forehead and he hisses at me. It really is the best party minus the setbacks: 1. phone gone wiener 2. dad gone wiener. I see Jack at the noodle line wearing my favorite shirt of green corduroy. He says sorry Rhubes I fell in the lake and had to change. We stare at each other cold as shady stones with Jack all white and a stutter of swallows but I am lust and noodle fervor, nothing else.
Later I am renegade and leaving my own party. I must not use my cell phone. Dad calls saying Rhubarb Rhubarb Rhubarb into the phone and then hangs up. I remember last year when Mom like him was a murmur of soft vulnerability, now she’s just a knot in the back I’ll never get to punch. But Nokia is a perfect example of how things change party after party…
I go back home. Everyone’s gone but Mom Dad Jack noodles. There’s noodles on the walls bar ceiling fan. Mom says he won’t lay down unless we put something on the ground like a dishrag or even a post-it. Dad is curled up on a college-ruled sheet of paper lapping from the foodbowl Mom scraped off the jukebox. Back in her cereal doghouse Blackberry is scrolling Sorority draped by wrong Sorority stuffed owl Sorority fears serious business and even Jack, never knowing when to leave, is stumped.
<< ISSUE #1
By Ally Harris
I get beer from the public fridge. How crowded it is with everyone I’ve ever worked with downstairs at the party. Jack is up in my room crying and my cell she keeps scrolling Wiener waits for dead at age 51 Wiener stays divided in several political areas Wiener stoops to not kosher :(
I really need Jack’s help but I hate all this femmy-la-la pooping tears from the ducts, no wet exchange for yours truly. I put Blackberry in Froot Loops sans milk to come back later. Someone put the wrong kind of mushrooms on Dad’s burger and everyone’s freaking out including him so he’s outside doing Tai Chi like a barbiturate cat whose stomach drags and he bites bites bites but you love him anyway. He tried to make me check his pulse so I slapped him slap he can’t argue cuz it seems to do the trick.
I can smell noodles we have so many noodles for my party lasagna penne farfalle linguine and regular with cheese so I kiss Dad on the forehead and he hisses at me. It really is the best party minus the setbacks: 1. phone gone wiener 2. dad gone wiener. I see Jack at the noodle line wearing my favorite shirt of green corduroy. He says sorry Rhubes I fell in the lake and had to change. We stare at each other cold as shady stones with Jack all white and a stutter of swallows but I am lust and noodle fervor, nothing else.
Later I am renegade and leaving my own party. I must not use my cell phone. Dad calls saying Rhubarb Rhubarb Rhubarb into the phone and then hangs up. I remember last year when Mom like him was a murmur of soft vulnerability, now she’s just a knot in the back I’ll never get to punch. But Nokia is a perfect example of how things change party after party…
I go back home. Everyone’s gone but Mom Dad Jack noodles. There’s noodles on the walls bar ceiling fan. Mom says he won’t lay down unless we put something on the ground like a dishrag or even a post-it. Dad is curled up on a college-ruled sheet of paper lapping from the foodbowl Mom scraped off the jukebox. Back in her cereal doghouse Blackberry is scrolling Sorority draped by wrong Sorority stuffed owl Sorority fears serious business and even Jack, never knowing when to leave, is stumped.
<< ISSUE #1
