Patrick Meeds
That Falling Sensation
I sat with my mother
for a long time before she died.
All night that hospital odor mixed
with the smell of microwave popcorn.
When I finally left in the morning
she looked like a candle that had melted.
There are people who no longer
worry about the hands of the clock
touching them, but that’s not me. I have
reached the age where I go to more
funerals than weddings (same grey suit)
and I am absolutely positive that
the dead are laughing at us. And why
shouldn’t they? We are ridiculous.
Take this for example. I have a scar
on the palm of each hand. The left one
I named Chain Link and the right one
Fence. But get this. Someone just told me
that all the honey bees aren’t really disappearing
like they said they were a few years ago.
I don’t know if that’s true but it’s probably best
if we keep operating as if they were.
There Is No Such Thing
I used to live on a street that had
a pay phone on the corner. One day
some guy beat it to death with its
own receiver. There’s a lesson there
don’t you think? We need to learn to die
better. I checked my mother’s old copy
of Hints From Heloise but there was
nothing helpful there. Ask me nicely
and I’ll show you my latest scar.
Ask me nicely and I’ll go away. You know
how whales sometimes beach themselves
and no one knows why? It’s happening
more and more. You shouldn’t worry
when various appendages fall asleep.
They always reawaken full of promise
and white noise. If you still need more
evidence that evolution is true, the surgeon
who pulled my wisdom teeth said
they looked like they belonged in the mouth
of a dinosaur. 25 years later, slivers of bone
and teeth are still worrying their way out
of my gums. Here, look, I’ll open wide
and show you.
PATRICK MEEDS lives in Syracuse, NY, and studies writing at the Syracuse YMCA’s Downtown Writer’s Center. He has been previously published in Stone Canoe Literary Journal, The New Ohio Review, Tupelo Quarterly, The Atticus Review, Whiskey Island, Guernica, The Main Street Rag, and Nine Mile Review, among others.