Ella
{illa}
If Nadia is an island,
and she totally is (if you
saw her swimming, which she hardly
ever does, because the last time
she went swimming, after a few
laps, she had stomach cramps for weeks,
it was not worth it, she is not
going to do that again (though
if pressed, if cajoled by a group
of friends at some beautiful lake,
remote, uncrowded, not too cold,
and assuming it wasn’t, like,
skinny-dipping, not that her friends
would go skinny-dipping, or, well,
not most of them, and they would know
better than to try to get her
to participate in those sorts
of hijinks (though if it’s hijinks,
then what’s a hijink?), not that she
has anything against hijinks
or hijinkery, it’s just not
for her, just like swimming isn’t
for her, and her friends (and if she
hasn’t thought much about her friends
for the past few days, it’s because
she’s on another continent,
having many wild adventures,
some of which involve oranges,
and some of which involve the moon,
but not all of them, not at all
(and if you must know, she has been
thinking about her friends back home,
and not just thinking about them
thinking about her and all her
adventures, how when she got home
they would get to hear her retell
(or relate, or maybe retract)
everything she had been up to,
and how she would start with that night
with the moon and the oranges
and, you know, build up from there, and
how much they would enjoy her tale,
or at least enjoy her telling,
and if she included the bits
about her thinking about them
instead of having adventures,
or tried to explain how thinking
about the moon and oranges
was more her sort of adventure,
then that would make for a sucky
adventure, that would be less than
epic, that would be a waste of
all that travel, all that escape)
and anyway, she’ll figure out
a proper adventure to have
soon), they know not-for-her–for-her
from not-for-her–not-for-her ( jink:
“to dance about wildly”: so then,
not-for-her–for-her) and so then
they probably could convince her)
then you’d see the resemblance as
she floated upon the water)
then what, she wonders, does it take
to become a peninsula.
***
bell-lloc
by Chris Piuma
20-page stapled chapbook with letterpress cover
[airfoil 5]
$5
and she totally is (if you
saw her swimming, which she hardly
ever does, because the last time
she went swimming, after a few
laps, she had stomach cramps for weeks,
it was not worth it, she is not
going to do that again (though
if pressed, if cajoled by a group
of friends at some beautiful lake,
remote, uncrowded, not too cold,
and assuming it wasn’t, like,
skinny-dipping, not that her friends
would go skinny-dipping, or, well,
not most of them, and they would know
better than to try to get her
to participate in those sorts
of hijinks (though if it’s hijinks,
then what’s a hijink?), not that she
has anything against hijinks
or hijinkery, it’s just not
for her, just like swimming isn’t
for her, and her friends (and if she
hasn’t thought much about her friends
for the past few days, it’s because
she’s on another continent,
having many wild adventures,
some of which involve oranges,
and some of which involve the moon,
but not all of them, not at all
(and if you must know, she has been
thinking about her friends back home,
and not just thinking about them
thinking about her and all her
adventures, how when she got home
they would get to hear her retell
(or relate, or maybe retract)
everything she had been up to,
and how she would start with that night
with the moon and the oranges
and, you know, build up from there, and
how much they would enjoy her tale,
or at least enjoy her telling,
and if she included the bits
about her thinking about them
instead of having adventures,
or tried to explain how thinking
about the moon and oranges
was more her sort of adventure,
then that would make for a sucky
adventure, that would be less than
epic, that would be a waste of
all that travel, all that escape)
and anyway, she’ll figure out
a proper adventure to have
soon), they know not-for-her–for-her
from not-for-her–not-for-her ( jink:
“to dance about wildly”: so then,
not-for-her–for-her) and so then
they probably could convince her)
then you’d see the resemblance as
she floated upon the water)
then what, she wonders, does it take
to become a peninsula.
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