Literary Orphans

Three Poems
by Susan McDonough-Hintz

xSagi

At His Sister’s Wedding

In a sea of high heels and biker boots scraping the dance floor, he spots me. My sandals

feel suddenly strappy. The corners of his eyes pinch into laugh lines. My hug launches

two seconds too soon. Sneaky tears eek through my pinhole ducts.

Christ. Stop that.

 

I knew he would look for me and all those years we’ve tucked neatly into private

keepsakes. Too much to admit. Like how I’ve missed his silence, I wished I’d written.

How when, twenty years ago, he asked me if I loved him and I said “No, not like that.”

Terror-talking.

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In This Town

Because the streets

climb steeply,

end abruptly,

throw sharp curves

at newcomers,

I find myself

thinking of love.

The hills take liberties

with cars risking the plunge

down them. Halfway

up a narrow rue

I am halted by the honk

of an attractive Peugeot.

There’s little room

to negotiate the jam,

yet I somehow

maneuver around him.

All the street signs

indicate how to leave,

but petunias and clover

sweeten the air and there

are just enough

bumps in the road.

 

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My Mother Kept Kleenexes in Her Purse

On the kitchen windowsill. She put a box in the bathroom. Two and three wadded up in her bowling bag, coat and jacket pockets. Peeking out of her bra. Tucked into cuffs. Wrapped ‘round baby teeth under Tooth Fairy pillows.

Sunday morning, late for mass, we girls scrambled into the Dodge Dart, forgetting head coverings and mother reached under the driver’s seat and like a collection plate, passed the tissue box and bobby pins to us, backed the car out, angled the rearview and blotted her lipstick, Bugle Call Red.

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Originally from the Jersey Shore, Susan McDonough-Hintz currently lives on the edge of a farm in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, with her wife, Roxane, and four rescued cats. When she isn’t testing websites in development for the Massachusetts Medical Society, she likes to listen to people’s stories. Her poems have been published in The Camel Saloon, Gemini, Message In A Bottle, Fortunates, and elsewhere. She has work forthcoming in Adanna and Raleigh Review. She often wakes to the howls of coyotes ‘round midnight and doesn’t mind them at all.

SMcDonough_self

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–Art by Sagi Kortler

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