May 2008 - THE POTOMAC



The Koi Died
   Ryn Gargulinski

the koi died
because the
fish pond got
polluted
because the
dog fell in and
decomposed because
he was old, blind, left
outside for
three days and
tumbled in and
drowned because the
the house sitter just
forgot and then was
busy getting her
truck unstuck from the
front mud driveway in the
latest monsoon and the 
tow truck that ripped up
the yard and the
owners who 
came home
and cried, for the
frontyard for the
killed koi for the
death of their dog for their
sorrow of not knowing
before—they
hired an
idiot.

 

Cranberry Juice

For H.T.

If we
met when we
were kids we
would have been
best friends raced our
big wheels down the
driveway played with
hula hoops and legos
worn matching sets of
flintstone band aids when we
fell and scraped our knees—we’d be

sweethearts once in
high school passed bad
poems beneath frayed
desktops been the
couple others envied at the
over-rated prom—then our

wedding by the
ocean barefoot waves of
thick emotion with a
honeymoon in
paris and a
marriage that
soon soured—I’d go

crazy in the
suburbs hide my
vodka in the hamper
take my cue from gals
in texas maybe even
drown the kids—with

them gone I’d take a
lover who’d come every
week on Wednesday til the
day you came home early
caught us naked in our
bed—then you’d

run and get the
shotgun blast my 

lover through the
temple tie me up
to all four bedposts douse
the bed in gasoline—if we

met when we
kids you would be
serving time in
Sing Sing I’d be
charred a
pile of ashes so it’s
good we
met the time
we did and saved
so many lives.

  
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