Pandemics and Puppies
My Poetry Salvage Reply.
Restless, and wondering when frolicking in a neighborhood park turned feckless, she thought about licking the rim of the vodka bottle but it was only noon and too early for such dangerous pursuits…
As the morons in their mullets and MAGA crap marched with weapons strapped to their spindly chests and fought for their fifteen minutes of fame on the “real” fake news channel anchored by maniacs…
She wondered why it was that she never liked beer, not even the smell, preferring the harder stuff, the stuff that lets you know “I’m here,” deep down inside, just waiting to unleash the magnificent beast…
Turning away from the morons in their camouflaged glory, she swallowed hard, reflecting on their heedless, maskless behavior that only a fake president such as the Orange Turd could appreciate…
Where to go now, she thought, now that her country was an alien space filled with alien people who cared not a damn for anyone or anything other than the right to hate and maim and spread their pestilence…
She remembered as a child, watching a neighbor’s puppies, their warm, wriggling bodies and coats like satin, frolicking in the August heat, in the Dog Days of summer…
Just a kid then, her body changing, preparing itself for womanhood, she had feelings she couldn’t explain, scary yet delicious, especially at night, when the moon illuminated her, gown hiked up, legs spread, humping her pillow…
Her throat is dry and she licks her lips, glancing at her freezer and then quickly turning away as she snatches up the TV remote and changes the channel to the other news where “freedom” they say, is not imminent…
She looks out her window where the skies are clear and the sun, unencumbered by even one cloud, is magnificent in its power to inspire hope in even the hopeless who view the world as one, big bio-hazard…
An old limerick comes to her, something vaguely sexual and she laughs and her laughter surprises her, much like a tree that falls in the forest with no one to hear it or even give a damn…
Emergencies of a pandemic nature abound on the news and she is riveted by the energy of the first-responders and police cars with their blue and red flashing lights that bring to mind a long-ago acid trip…
She watches the TV, riveted, as an old lady on a gurney carried by two hunky EMTs breaks into a hacking cough just as she is loaded into an ambulance that will carry her to someplace where she’ll probably never leave…
“Enough,” she thinks and turns off the set, and is suddenly struck by the ridiculous thought that she should have bought that cheap set of twinkling, stringed lights on Amazon Prime…
Jittery now, she sits down on her sofa that has seen better days and once again looks at her freezer where her fate beckons, icy cold, yet hot, too, like a fever dream that won’t let up, and so she gets up…
Fuck it.
Inspired by Chris Hedges’ Fluttergaze Spirit and Xavier Van Holde’s Quarantine Nap City using the following words:
twinkling / stringed/ lights / red/ blue/ emergencies/ limerick / dream / puppies/ frolicking / licking/ humping / magnificent / skies / bio-hazard / maskless / feckless / maniacs / hacking/ camouflaged / morons / mullets/ freedom/ beer
Tagging Rasheed Hooda, Caroline de Braganza and Reuben Salsa.
Sherry McGuinn is a slightly-twisted, longtime Chicago-area writer and award-winning screenwriter. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and numerous other publications. Sherry’s manager is currently pitching her newest screenplay, a drama with dark, comedic overtones and inspired by a true story.