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Maggie Shurtleff

way it is


"…listen don't give me no cutoff

i'd rather not know and

not think about it…"    Cait Collins


Tomorrow, it won't be easy

he says.

I say, I don't want to know

how many pits will chip my teeth

cut my tongue

--knowing takes too much out

of the taste.


He walked away wasted

couldn't understand why

I just wouldn't stay home

--call out sick

to spare me

my own sweet blood.



I'm not


I was asked to finger

my exact moment of when I

became a poet.


I gave the finger instead

and said I'm not.


That was the only

interview requested of me.

Now, I wish I had said

something brilliant

something off-edge

something to keep

the bull-shitters reaching

for me--


well, at least long enough

to get one fuckin' book

published.


ah well, I always

have an obituary

to write-

hell, that's even better-

everyone I care about

can read it free-

when they stop into

the library to wash up

they'll pick up a paper

turn to old friends

and say remember her

she's the one that

said fuck em all

I always liked her

raw.


she never made a dime

she wrote about us

the junkies and whores

old men talking to

aliens and such.

remember that one

about Carlo, how he

boosted a rooster

turned out to be a hen


how bout the one

where she fell on her knees

thought God was somewhere

on a billboard but really

it was a slipped trip

placed in her mouth

by that s.o.b. Mark

who kissed her goodbye


I saw her last year

looking up at a Coke

sign, I wondered if she

really knew something we didn't

or whether a flashback

got her all jammed up again


she told me she liked the color

red because there was nothing

false about it. made me think

that other colors lie and she

didn't respect them.  I guess

that's why she is the way

she is, she spills on you

and says

it adds more to the soup.


[Index]

Thunder Sandwich #26 - Summer/Fall 2005