A Tale of Two Children

It was well-known which heads were infested. They were to stick to the blacktop while the others roamed the yard. None in the grass wanted to be flung too far so the merry-go-round spun cautiously. Liced and non-liced alike saw communities prove liquid as new alliances formed with the shifting of boundaries. A braided head and buzz cut speculated on how closely they had come to ruin. Children on the asphalt made do with chalk, drawing four-squares and bouncing rubber balls between them. They knew they were watched but maintained a charade of play. They wore knitted caps from the lost and found and shared orange wedges because it couldn’t get any worse. Even resuming their interior posts, the liced betrayed themselves with sniffles, having spent nights naked and upright, shivering under maternal scrutiny. They would later cite this as the defining moment of their lives. It’s not that they forever felt creeped upon, but that they came to see the world as intractably flat. For geography, they turned inward to their own bony fulcrums and weakening fault lines.

 – Kim Hagerich

fantastic

fantastic

 

 

pro life at

the anti abortion

rally she looks at

a baby’s

severed head.

 

plastic tweezers

grip cauterized

flesh. eyelashes flutter

in formaldehyde.

the head sinks patiently

in a plastic jar next to

poly synthetic postcards

printed as

reminders.

 

 

*

 

 

pro life at

the pro choice

rally she picks up

plastic speculums.

 

peels

them out of

sterile packages.

waterproof pamphlets

on how to perform

the procedure.

plastic gloves and

bumper stickers

about no men, fish

and bicycles.

 

 

***

 

 

 

she buys two

plastic picture frames.

one for the pamphlet and

the postcard. she uses

plastic glue to

stick them to her plastic

fridge. takes out a

plastic carton of orange

juice, pours it into a

plastic glass.

 

she lays down on the

wood plastic floor.

 

and pauses

to think about the

state of the crises.

 

–e.m. monteiro