Cuttings

Midsummer garden
stretches out in front of me.
No rain is forecast.

Watch gardener snip
the stems, prune the overgrowth
while I sip latte.

My brother texts me
pics from Cayman Island beach.
Starts chemo next week.

Rescued daisies splayed
across the cafe table,
giving one last gift.

Bee, unfazed by death,
caresses inner circles
in her quiet quest.

She takes the pollen,
resurrects brown flower heads
with vibrating pulse.

This is not a pipe

His mom drowns herself in the Sambre.
When they find her,
14-year-old Magritte is present at the scene.
Observes her nightgown obscured face—

[The rest of this is a treachery:]

I will paint the dress red like his ties.
Crowd in dark—
overcoats and bowler hats
block the view—

[the human condition]

René stands next
to short gray wall
with seaside setting,
notes no wind or song,

glances at blue sky shrouded
with flat silk clouds,
wishes he could float, imagines
this is not her.

OK, I admit, I’ve abused you over the years—

Wedging, strapping, cramming you
into sky-high-size-too-small platforms.
Damn, you dutifully danced in those peep
toe patents that made you bleed.
And you were a champ breaking
those combat boots in for me.
You even withstood me pounding you
into asphalt. I’m sorry about your stress
fracture. I knew you were vulnerable
but I kept using you again and again.

Year after decade you just manage to get uglier:
Your caving arches, your leaning tower
of Pisa bunions, your hammered toes
that have built corns and calluses
to protect you from the pressure.
You have been the talk of every salon
You’ve brought me to for your monthly gel pedicure.
See, I’ve tried to make you pretty and presentable,
but even your nails have detached.
They’ve grown thick and tired too.

It’s evident you have lost some feeling
you can never get back,
but numbness does beat pain.
The blistering truth here:
divorce is not a viable option—
I’m sorry that I can’t give you the space you need,
that I haven’t tried harder to fix us,
that it’s just you now resisting collapse,
that you will never feel the freedom of a flip flop.

Pastitsio Duet in a Minor Key

I am in my Mom’s kitchen/ I didn’t know dead people still needed a kitchen but here we are/
& this setting choice is odd because she never taught me how to cook anything except lasagne

which I replay for every Easter/ meal train/birthday party/office potluck/& even though this one-hit wonder of a meal never gets old, I wish I had preserved some other ditties from her repertoire/

Don’t judge her–this is totally my fault/I never wanted to learn any other recipe that she knew like
a how-I-could-play-both-parts-of-Heart-and-Soul-on-the-piano-with-my-eyes-closed kind of know/

& I am at this stove boiling water & her index cards keep firing out/ & I can only make out
a bunch of 0’s as she starts to sing them in Greek/ & I tell her I wish I had picked that up too/

along with how to sew a button/to starch shirts/ to play bridge/to forgive/to remain
calm/ but I did learn the piano/even though I haven’t played for decades/& the sheet music’s still

piled somewhere in the basement/But I can’t remember how to read any notes/Wait–
I think I can remember Chopsticks/But I can’t do this alone/ So now I’m listening for instructions

as the tomato sauce simmers into every regret/& I know I’m messing up/ & Mom is warming
up the bench/waving a straining ladle in the air/waiting for me to strike all the chords—

Empty Nest

Bob feeds dog food he buys in bulk at Costco to the crows on our patio.
We don’t have a dog. She died two years ago. I don’t know why we still go to Costco.

It’s just the two of us since our youngest son found three roommates & a house
in Amherst last month. For Father’s Day, my daughter & her fiancé who moved

to Virginia mailed Bob a hand carved staff topped with a crow off Etsy.
They don’t care about you, I chirp. I suggest adopting a Goldendoodle,

as I water my begonias that I refer to as the children. My husband wants the flock
to trust him. Claims he communicates with them. Says it’s a feat they still feast

when they spy us watching them from the kitchen window. Informs me
they never forget a face, mate for life, raise broods together year after year.

They call us each morning to remind us we are neglecting them.
Complain about the murder down the street, or the hawk in their oaks.

They never bring us gifts, rarely return our calls, perch in the backyard
branches, endure our presence on their porch. I never hear from

the robins & the goldfinches anymore. But sometimes they show up just to shit
on the Adirondack chairs. Our oldest kid & his girlfriend just bought a blue Persian.

He texts me a video of their kitty failing to snatch Utz chips from an open bag.
Tells me it attacks the new TV when he plays bird documentaries,

scratches the gray couch next to the five-hundred-dollar cat tree,
refuses to care, pines on the apartment sill, stares at the gray sky, plots its escape—

Victoria Nordlund’s poetry collection Wine-Dark Sea was published by Main Street Rag in 2020. She is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize Nominee, whose work has appeared in PANK Magazine, Rust+Moth, Chestnut Review, Pigeonholes, and elsewhere. Visit her at VictoriaNordlund.com