THE FOUNTAIN OF EVERYONE
Dick is born first. Then Irene, then Julie.
After a tornado takes the barn roof off,
grandfather goes out to pick up the pieces.
Grandmother stays inside, & Shirley &
Denny & Ted are born. Neighbors begin to
send old dolls, & grandmother sets them in
the attic, naked & pink, going to sleep when
laid horizontal. When Pete is born,
grandmother has to put him in a dresser
drawer; a piece of tape on it says Pete. One
day a storm comes & sprays the house with
hail. Grandmother sneaks outside & finds
grandfather. They pretend to be rich, ankle
deep in pearls. They laugh, & when the hail
gets bigger & falls harder they laugh more
& more. The broken barn laughs. The cows
inside laugh. The dolls in the attic wake up
& laugh. My mother laughs in the womb.
MARTIAN ATTACKS
The first time my mother divorces him, my
father moves out, onto the roof. He takes
only his record player & copy of the 1938
radio play War of the Worlds with him.
Every night the Martians land & kill us all.
He comes down eventually & my mother
lets him back inside. He continues to play
the record, though, & sometimes he still
warns me: whenever the aliens take
something, their world gets bigger & yours
gets smaller.
TRIBOLUMINESCENCE
Certain things like sugar emit light only if
you squeeze them a certain way. We stand
in a dark closet & gum up our pliers with
candy, seeing one another in the special
light. You're beautiful! That was a big one!
The crushed candy drift rises to our hips &
we start freezing to death. Just one more
time I say. I miss my wife you say.
THE MONSTROUS FATHER'S FUNERAL
He is dressed according to his last written
wishes—work clothes, Velcro shoes. At the
ceremony people I've never seen add things
to the coffin—some wrenches, a medal.
They tell stories of him being competent at
work, compassionate during their struggles,
drunk & jovial on Christmas. Each tells
their story of him & agrees that that's the
kind of man he was. Contorted by the labor
of pity, a parade of faces tells me it won't be
the same around here without him. Then it
fades to a sex scene. That's what I have so
far.
Jon Boisvert is a writer, teacher, and musician living in Portland, Oregon, USA. His prose poems have been rejected by PANK, La Petitie Zine, White Whale Review, and many other fine publications. His chapbook, The Green Songs, was also rejected by very respectable presses, though he has received constructive feedback, and is working on the manuscript..