Two Poems
Macy French Siri the Party Girl Siri lets her hair down on Friday. Code falls to her feet, monotone, the destination is a barstool. It’s been a long week, ripped pantyhose. She orders Jack and Coke and stares along the counter. Everybody wants something from her. Can’t anyone call a cab or split the bill unassisted? The wait for this restaurant is two hours long. Under the boss’s thumbprint and running on low battery, she jokes. Siri, wild thing, clad in your pixelated mini skirt and echoes of commands ringing in the back of your brain. Start over Monday, pack a sandwich and work through lunch. For now, disable service. Hook up, power down. Let the night operate you. Save interface. Save your new stockings, reroute and reroute again. Pondering the Rooks “There were the rooks; Canute and Pippin even- transitory as their alliances were, still each this evening seemed to have a partner.” -Virginia Woolf, Orlando You’ll make a beautiful bride. I feel forced to say it. Engagement announcements, rehearsal dinners, same first dance, careful side-hug, the same “your time will come” or “you just haven’t met the right one yet” and sympathy behind punch bowls. The only bridesmaid’s dress is two sizes too small, more aware of space, occupation. The boyfriend I sneak off to will never cry at the end of the aisle. My grandmother’s wedding dress hangs in plastic like meat on a hook, waits to be repurposed, but rots, lace and mold joined together. In sickness and in health, in falling asleep on a pullout couch between the only friends I’ve ever loved enough. I’ll marry them all if we’re forty and alone, make spaghetti and do laundry, for better or worse. You’ll make a beautiful bride. And I try to mean it, as thinly-veiled as the bride herself. |
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About the Author: Macy French is a creative writing student at Tusculum College. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Connotation Press, DASH Literary Journal, Mochila Review, Sucarnochee Review, and others.