Meg Pokrass

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Getting Back


I stared out the window at the moon that night, the shiny moon that shattered everyone's trust, the asshole of a moon that made me realize I would never go back to where I once belonged and that Grandma was finally gone. I didn't belong anywhere. I thought about changing my name to Sweet Loretta Modern, becoming a dancer, but it wasn’t time. Still, there were ways to trick the moon. I remembered Grandma in her car, the two of us holding our bladders for the coast, belting "Get Back" until our throats were dry. There we were, walking away from her old junker, smelling the sulphur of the ocean air, Grandma tearing off her top, bare-breasted and free of radiation. It was the year I stopped worrying about the thing inside me that insisted no one will have the guts to tell you when it happens because you’re already a mess. She was sweet as pie, my grandmother. Tired of mindfulness clinics, of pretty young doctors wearing Teva sandals, tired of feeling so damn old and sick. Mama didn't tell me anything about her death. All I knew was that Grandma was finally singing her song. She was back with her own Mama, wearing high heels and a low-neck sweater, right back where she once belonged.

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Slice


You thirsty? he asked, when he opened his door. He forgot to say hello, but I remembered, and said hello for both of us. He served me a lemonade, which was too sour, but his face, when he poured it, looked sweet. His place was messy, but everything inside it was neatly arranged. Take a load off, he said, but I remained standing up, drinking his lemonade, letting acidity dominate my throat. This is sweet, I said, meaning the offer of a cooling beverage, not the lemonade itself. I think it’s awful, he said apologetically, slapping his arm as if a bug had landed on it. They’re everywhere these days, he said, batting the empty air.  I knew what he meant about bugs, about feeling pestered by them, but it wasn’t the season. They’re the worst, I said, but in truth, I missed them. I missed having something to blame, or something to swat, or something to explain the emptiness. I’ve been to two cleaning jobs already today, I said, wiping sweat from my forehead, even though he didn’t ask how my morning had been and I didn’t want sympathy from him or anyone else. I was losing one job after another, but I wanted to lose them. Instead of telling me what he needed done, he smiled. It was an upside-down kind of smile, like a turned-over slice of grapefruit, and I wondered if lying on the floor might help me to see his face in a different perspective. Good thing you’re here, he said. I didn’t say that recently, the places I cleaned looked worse after I cleaned them.

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Queuing 


We hated our village in silence alone. Spied each other in line at the Co-op to buy cigarettes, both of us in stained jeans, a slope to our shoulders, our can you believe how long this line is taking? shrugs resembling old snow that takes too long to melt, both of us tumbling around the idea that we were fated to live here for reasons unknown, both of us up and down the aisles as if searching for something that wasn’t on anyone’s list, both of us thinking, "I wish I had something to suggest to myself or to somebody else", both of us feeling more silent around the holidays when the tinsel and Christmas paraphernalia orbited and we tried not to notice, so bruised one Christmas I considered buying a lawn ornament at the hardware store and wondered if you did too, both of us secretly laughing about how depressing a small village can be when there’s nobody to talk to, both of us not knowing where the other lives but wanting to know it, both of us wondering, “do you think I’m still here?” Slipping each other a gift that is not really a smile, thinking a bird would make a bird noise just to know if another bird was as lonely, both of us needing a drink and an ill-advised kiss from someone who saw us, the two of us forming a blood clot in the checkout line when pretending not to see each other. 

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Banner Art:
from Le Réveil, Her Mother’s Kiss, Eugène Carrière, 1899