by Michael Mark
She made the pants too wide
so when he tried them on
he was swallowed up like out
of the Bible. It’s because you
don’t eat enough! she yelled
into the trousers, hearing back
the wrinkly echo of her melodic
tones. She could have been a famous
singer. Tired of his annoyingness
she went to cook goulash. Dinner!
she called to the pants, splayed
so comfortably on the floor. What
she wouldn’t give for such peace.
She poured the brown food straight
from the pot down one leg, then
the other until she heard, Overdid
the paprika again but the chicken’s
moist! With her knife she shredded
the front and back pockets, waist
band, cuffs, then went for a smoke,
saddened by letting another one
get away. A belt! she thought. That
would have changed everything. Everything,
she sang. Everything!
Michael Mark is the author of Visiting Her in Queens is More Enlightening than a Month in a Monastery in Tibet which won the Rattle Chapbook prize and will be published in 2022. His poems have been recently appeared in Copper Nickel, Grist, Pleiades, Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, The Southern Review, The Sun. michaeljmark.com
Hawaii Pacific Review 