Fish, Shrimps, Stars, and Peace
by Becca Yenser
Spaghetti for dinner. Why did you buy a white tablecloth, he says, as he spills and doesn’t wipe it up. He sleeps in the basement with the spiders. I take the crickets in the upper bedroom. The cat sleeps in the okra during the day, and on top of three folded blankets at night. Some people like forks, but I use chopsticks and these are brand new from the Asian grocery outlet with little designs of fish, shrimp, stars, peace signs.
My father has cancer. He wants to burn his journals but first asks if that’s okay. I always burn my journals, I say. Why did I quit smoking? The men next door smoke and leave me the cartons all over my lawn: Parliament, Dunhill, Doral, Kool, Prix.
I’m playing ukulele now. My neighbor crosses the street, folds her arms, I just wanted to see if you had the right yard sign, she says. Do you even know me? I say. We assess each other from across the lawn. We both look a little like Bruce Springsteen. She nods. The cat digs up the iris at the old meth house. Let it be, I sing, let it be.
Becca Yenser is a writer living in Wichita, Kansas. They are the author of the poetry chapbook, “Too High and Too Blue In New Mexico” (Dancing Girl Press, 2018). Their work appears in Hobart, Madcap Review, The Nervous Breakdown, Dostoyevsky Wannabe, Fanzine, and other journals. They like paying attention.
