CUCUMBER MELON SMELLS LIKE AFTERBIRTH
I BREATHE WITH MY MOUTH OPEN WHEN I’M IN THE CANDLE STORE
SOMETIMES I AM SITTING AT HOME WITH A CRAVING AND I CAN’T PUT MY FINGER ON IT AND THEN BLAMMO, I WILL REALIZE I AM CRAVING THE TASTE OF THE CANDLE STORE
IT HAS A TASTE, I’M NOT ON GLUE
I JUMPED THAT PUTA BEHIND THE P.E. TRAILER, SHE PULLED MY HAIR AND SCREAMED AND I PUNCHED A TOOTH INTO HER THROAT
I TRY NOT TO FEEL VICTORY THINKING OF THAT
IT IS DIFFICULT NOT TO
I GOT INTO THAT BOY’S TRUCK AND TOLD HIM WHERE TO DRIVE AND WHEN HE PULLED OVER I CLIMBED INTO HIS LAP, THE LOOK IN HIS EYES
I LOVE THINKING OF THAT LOOK
JULIAN IS ASSURING THE MAN THAT THE FRESH COTTON CANDLE SET SMELLS EXACTLY LIKE BOUNCE DRYER SHEETS ONCE LIT
I KNOW THIS IS NOT TRUE, I KNOW IT ACTUALLY SMELLS LIKE KOOL-AID BACKWASH
THE OLD MAN IS ASIAN, I CAN SEE THAT NOW, THERE DIDN’T USE TO BE BUT ONE ASIAN IN THIS COMMUNITY BACK IN THE DAY, THE HIGH SCHOOL ALGEBRA TEACHER, BUT NOW THEY ARE EVERYWHERE, I SMILE EXTRA BIG AT HIM TO LET HIM KNOW I AM COMFORTABLE WITH OUR MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY
AND I AM
COMFORTABLE WITH IT, I MEAN
THE OLD MAN IS TELLING JULIAN HE HAS THE ORANGE NUTMEG LINE IN HIS DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM, I FEEL SYMPATHY FOR THE SWIRLING VOMITOUS TOMB HIS HOUSE MUST BE
THERE CAME A DAY WHEN I RAN OUT OF CLASS TO BARF UP AGAINST THE LOCKERS, THERE WAS A BABY FOR A WHILE BUT THEN IT WENT AWAY
THE LORD TAKETH, THANK GOD
THE TRUCK BABY IS HOW I CAME TO THINK OF IT
I NEVER TOLD THE BOY, BUT I WISHED I HAD TOLD HIM SO HE COULD THANK ME FOR NOT TELLING HIM
JULIAN HAS FINISHED WITH THE MAN, I SEE HIM FIDDLING WITH SOME PAPERS AT THE REGISTER, I KNOW HE IS HOPING I WILL LEAVE
I WANT TO TELL JULIAN THE BESTSELLING CHILDHOOD SUMMER CANDLE HE SOLD ME LAST WEEK SMELLS LIKE BUBBLE GUM WEDGED BETWEEN TWO FUNGUS TOES
SOMETIMES YOU KNOW WHEN YOU SHOULDN’T SAY SOMETHING
IF JULIAN WERE A CANDLE HE’D BE NAMED AMARETTO EXPLOSION OR MOCHA ANGEL
I WANT JULIAN TO BE A CANDLE
SO I CAN TAKE HIM HOME
IT IS FIVE MINUTES FROM CLOSING TIME, I DROVE HERE AFTER THERE WAS NOTHING ON TELEVISION, MY SON EATING HIS DINNER IN HIS ROOM, ME PICKING UP THE PHONE AND PUTTING IT BACK DOWN, ME SITTING ON MY PORCH TO WATCH THE SUN SET, THE SUN MELTING LIKE THE DISCONTINUED PSYCHEDELIC SHERBET LINE
I DROVE HERE I CAN’T HELP IT
BEACH SANDALS SMELLS LIKE THE DIRT ROAD ME AND THE BOY PULLED OVER ON
I CAN’T HELP IT
I WAS A HOT BITCH IN MY DAY BUT NOW I AM SHAPED LIKE A CANDLE
DISHES
At breakfast my kid practices his ABCs and barfs into his cereal bowl just before Q. My other kid points out how the barf splashed onto the table in the shape of Oklahoma. I don’t tell him it looks more like Texas, he’s a little kid and if he wants to mistake Texas for Oklahoma it’s no skin off my tit. My husband wipes up the barf and I watch his shorts bunch in his ass.
Before I leave for work my kid hands me a brown bag and tells me he’s made my lunch, when I’m halfway down the driveway he yells after me, Big girls gotta eat! and I guess I taught him that saying, it’s what I usually say when I’m eating in front of other people, because I am a big girl, that’s a fact, and it makes people feel better if it’s acknowledged. I give my kid a thumbs-up and oink like a pig, he loves it, standing in the doorway in his undies, doubled over.
Backing down the driveway I roll over the front wheel of my kid’s bike, but he doesn’t see, he’d gone back inside, the dog in the doorway now, the puddle eyes in that box head watching me balefully.
At the light I eat what’s in the brown bag, a Fruit Roll-Up and seven Tootsie Rolls, a half-drunk juice box, the single Goldfish cracker way down at the bottom.
At work a lady wants her hair to look exactly like a bowl of Trix. The girl next to me helps a lady who wants hair the exact shade of maple syrup. Rich, she tells the girl, rich and lustrous. In the back we laugh at her, mime rubbing our nipples in the heat of climax, saying, Lllllustrous! A man with a glass eye tells me his hair used to be more pepper but he was glad for the salt, it’s distinguished, I nick the pink mole on his neck but he doesn’t notice. A girl comes in asking for red Kool-Aid hair but it comes out more like orange Triaminic, she doesn’t seem to care, some people like being ugly I guess.
Later on I trim the waxer’s bangs and in return she waxes my bikini line. Hold this back, she says, pushes up on my belly fat, layered blobs of tapioca pudding. Big girls gotta eat, I say, and the waxer laughs, holds her legs together like she might pee. You are too funny, she says, you are just too funny. Breathes in deep, rips the strips of paper, holds them up to show me, pube Fruit Roll-Ups. See all that nasty hair we got? See all those roots? Next time we’ll do your arms.
At lunch we have pizza, someone’s client is the manager at the Pizza Slab. For a snack we order wings from the bar next door. I alternate celery stick, wing, celery stick, wing. We smoke out back, a while ago someone wrote, You so ugly on the seat of the one chair out there, it’s a badge of courage to sit in the ugly chair, the pedicurist declaring me so ugly that I could scare the shit out of poop. Everyone laughs and me the hardest, when she’s not looking I ash into the pedicurist’s side part, go back inside.
My husband calls, the TV blaring in the background. Could I pick up some laundry detergent he asks, could I also pick up some beer, something for dinner, dessert, breakfast, lunch for the rest of the week, juice. What are you watching? I ask him. The History channel, he says, but I know better, I hear the childlike yelling of those anime cartoons he loves, I know he is at half-chub and doesn’t want to talk about it, I hang up over him saying, And some string cheeses.
At the grocery store a song about a man on a boat is playing, he feels so free. I stand in the frozen foods aisle, all the boxes are green or red, stop and go, yes and no, I get raviolis and frozen peas and chicken nuggets and a cheesecake. At the checkout I add two packs of bubble gum, the kids will probably chew three times and swallow just like always. A tabloid shows a young starlet’s cottage cheese thighs. I ask the cashier to wait while I run to the dairy aisle, I am craving cottage cheese now, I get the biggest tub there is, large curd, I laugh to myself, I laugh and laugh, big girls gotta eat. In the car I listen to a song about a small-town slut, the DJ comes on and assures me there’s more where that came from, a song about a lonely desert wanderer starts, I pass tacos pizzas chicken ice cream barbecue. The sky is pink meatblood, is a runny sorbet, the sun is a melting butterscotch, the sky is a dirty plate.