Fat battered Mom on her deathbed. Splattered splayed pinned pithed. She was. Spluttering profane with pain. She was. Cackling about Canadian geese, winged pilgrimage, drought, plague, man, fiend. The villagers should pillage, rape the invaders, not the other way around. She said. Choose well, my girl. She warned. Wrong turn, it's your head. Final bill comes due once you're softened for the kill.
Sit on my lap. Take heart. Tachycardia.
Remember the law of the conservation of matter. The mother muttered. Utter swill. Puncture me, I ooze, drink my juice. Aha! She spat. Take that! Her last advice: don't fantasize about offing your dad. She laughed. Don't live in the past. It'll give you gas.
© 2004 Shelley Ettinger
's poetry and fiction have been in Mississippi Review, Word Is Bond, Lodestar Quarterly, Blithe House Quarterly, La Petite Zine, Pindeldyboz and other print and online journals. She has just finished writing her first novel.
