NOAH

the rain came
thick in tucumcari – it
tried its wet best to
drown both my goats one
stood
atop the
other – smashed her
bony back down in the
muddy flood – the bottom
goat bobbled her frail
back gave way her head
dipped quick below
the surface -- we rescued
the two to the laundryroom –
where both promptly peed
on the floor – the
perfume of ammonia
seeped deep beneath
linoleum as they
pawed hooves all over
white walls – bit a big
hole in the flimsy tin
dryer hose.

-Ryn Gargulinski.12.23.10

SKATING A GLACIER

when I write I
tend to skate the
surface – I tell you
a story I even make
it fancy give you
axels, double-axels,
plié – but I fear to
scrape beneath the
glacier – it’s been
years in formation to
freeze out emotion who
knows what doth really
lurk beneath – if I poke
at such a carcass it may
unleash thick maggots or
perhaps it’s more like a
cocoon – where inside
dwells a
butterfly.

-Ryn Gargulinski.12.16.10

INSECT CHINESE WATER TORTURE

bugs are
smarter than
we think they know
exactly where
our eardrum is just as
we fall asleep they know
to bite the crappy
itchy spots behind our
back and knees they
know to fly through the
one single wound that
gapes in the bent-up and
dog-injured screen they know to
land so promptly at dinner atop –
a mound of pure white
cottage cheese.

-Ryn Gargulinski.10.31.10

FLUFF

by Ryn Gargulinski

fluff
can be
cushy sweet
plushy cute like
something
you
pack
in your
pillow that –

soft stuff
that cradles
your head but –

fluff
can be

nasty
harsh
abrasive
gruff as the

term used to
criticize your writing or –

the curt cold so
loathsome response when
you open up and
disclose your
dreams.

BETRAYAL POEMS: BETRAYAL and LET DOWN

BETRAYAL
by Ryn Gargulinski

they may have thought
we would take them on a
bicycle ride a trek to the
circus a zip to the zoo but instead

we put them in an ice cube tray – each
bald baby mouse in its own
little cube – each parent, dismayed where

their babies went – atop lean cuisine
pizza beside smashed frozen peas – the
next morning we pulled

out the ice cube tray – found several cubes
empty as a number had crawled – to a lumpy
pinkie clump in one cube – a huddle that had hoped to

stay warm – one frozen mid-crawl on
the lip – his paw grasping at the
the cold freezer
sky.

Poem in honor of pinkies we wrenched away from pet mice to feed lizard Lazlo
___

LET DOWN
by Andrew Ulanowski

Betrayal is having
the person
you have fallen
in love with
ask you to review
their ad on Match.com