Three Poems from Sister Satellite by Cathryn Cofell
The Brain Tumor Speaks
Please. Please. I will wait
everything.
The horrible man coming,
have you been to him?
They’d come and it would be
ok, right? I need
to talk to this people, first
thing. I renumber, I sure do:
270-0Nate32.
I have to talk to him
before it’s cover.
I saw the invention I was given.
See the thing I saw?
Here it is. It’s all yours.
It’s all now.
We have to give it to
me. It will take it.
I promise.
I can still stand if you have to.
I will up with you.
I have Koinonia for the doctor:
here it is. It’s all now.
I’ll tell you in the pinks.
Can we grabble in morning?
Then, we are wonderful.
I will stay. Here.
I will lay by my lay.
From the behind of my heart.
You are my sunshine my only
sunshine. Good might
sleep glove.
I live you. I live
you.
High-Speed Connections
I took a digital picture of my hand
and sent it away,
emailed to a psychic in West Bend.
At first, it was undeliverable.
Then a suspicious attachment, needs
authentication.
A third time she replied,
said my palm was fuzzy.
I became her $20 pay pal
and suddenly she had clarity,
a map quest, a maze of intersections.
She saw a scoundrel’s name,
Lucy or Cin,
a flamboyant but unremarkable life.
Wrong, I said, that was not my life-
line she was reading,
it must have been a silver hair
caught on the lens as the shutter closed.
But she held firm,
said it was more than just the palm
she read, she knew me, she saw
how my lines crossed with others,
a flash of pain in every touch.
She saw a future as a circus act
or a hit man and I knew she had me,
caught in her sights, that day
I let you fall from my slick palms,
that endless Hitchcock drop,
hands forever clutching,
cliffs of straw and chaff.
first appeared in Oranges & Sardines
Appeal for Eclipse
Enough about the damn moon.
Bulimic bitch, four fits
of clothes, all that cellulite
and she still prances,
still tries
to light up the sky
when he wants only to be dark,
to be Johnny Cash and strum
the train ride right out of her.
Enough from the poets,
the artists, the astronomers.
Quit coveting her behind his back.
She needs to learn the ways
of a docile woman,
to be viewed askew
from inside a cardboard box,
her trashy peep show ass
puppeted from the earth,
strung up behind the sun
curtained by this ring of fire.
first appeared in Oranges & Sardines
