Criterion

Downhill Racer

They couldn’t eat the day
  before the competition, their stomachs
pulled taffy. They exercise athletic
  practice of self-denial.

He had breakfast with his father,
  crackers & cheese, in front of the television,
turned off. Conversation sparse,
  cold as the room.

“Winning? Making money?”
  “I win today and I make the team for the Olympics.”
“Why do it if there’s no money.”
  “I’ll be famous,

I’ll be champion.”
  “The world’s full of ‘em.” He drove his father’s Ford pickup
to the event. All the way to the top.

- - -

Revanche

The photograph in his pocket
next to the rocks he collected
next to the lake.

Next to the lake
next to his backyard
his old man played accordion.

His old man played accordion
next to her grave,
next to the lake.

Next to the lake,
next to the photograph of her grave,
he took the rocks in his hands.

He took the rocks in his hands,
next, to his fist
next, to the lake.

Next to the lake
next to the shore
the ripples didn’t stop.

Calendar/Dick

Calendar
After Kelly Link

1. Monday I’m in a cab when I have a heart attack.
2. My report, “The Fiscal Revenue of the Second Valve,” is due Tuesday
3. so I tell my doctor that I’ll deal with this whole heart thing on Wednesday.
4. “Well, when you’re dead on Thursday
5. I won’t have to schedule an emergency operation on Friday
6. which frees up my Saturday for golf.”
7. I die on Sunday.
8. The cab driver’s name that time is Mayday, which, moments before I died, reminded me of that James Bond villain. That unattractive diva. The one that works for the evil Christopher Walken without any explained motivations. The one that predictably sacrificed herself. The mine she dies in looked like Hell before and after the explosion.
9. Sewer gators– I’ve always been afraid of dinosaurs– are chewing on my legs. Tomorrow is payday for demons.
10. My report, “Yesterday’s Torture and the Effects of Leeches on the Human Anatomy” is due.
11. I like to think that someday the people in charge will stop asking for these.
12. Maybe I’ll get a break. Maybe on my birthday.

- - -

Dick
After S.S. Van Dine

1. It was my boyfriend. He told me in secret.
2. (See # 11 for where he told me, then return here). Gotcha.
3. They had had sex.
4. My boyfriend was in cahoots with a detective.
5. I don’t remember the names of either of them, my boyfriend or the detective.
6. The detective had talked to me once before. Asked me about my boyfriend, took a photo, left.
7. Then he ran over my cat.
8. My dead cat told me that the detective was schtupping my boyfriend.
9. All my friends agreed with my cat.
10. They said he was also sleeping with Mildred, remember her?
11. Mildred, the butler.
12. My boyfriend, Mildred and the detective.
13. Together they were the Three Muskeeteers.
14. That photo the detective took was replaced with a picture of the three of them tangled together, naked, on the back of a beluga whale in space. And a bill from the detective.
15. Looking back, I still don't see it coming. Especially about Mildred.
16. The photo was dated 10/31/99. I remember that Halloween as the one that I dressed up as DIY Frankenstein. My head was a paper bag from Ralph’s with a grease stain on top that looked like hair. I had some facial masque leftover, so the skin color was a cinch. Some leftover shoe boxes from when I moved where still in the garage so I used them as my giant boots. The pants I already owned and all my shirts were too big anyway. I had created myself. My boyfriend was the Bride of Frankenstein, but he bought the costume at a Party City. He didn’t even wear it. He obviously wasn’t with me that night.
17. They all apologized to me.
18. They said it was an accident.
19. They said it was just business.
20. My cat never meowed at my boyfriend, Mildred or the detective.