Ten Six-Word Stories

Submitted to the #6wordmiami contest for the Miami Book Fair International

Parachute for Sale. Used Once. Unopened.

Stork flies. Woman cries. Baby arrives.

Bike wheels. Car brakes. Ambulance sirens.

Candy house. Witch home. Oven on. 

I’m on top, Adam, Lilith said.

The woman turned into a swan.

Inanna hears the cries of Ereshkigal.

Men brought her sorrow and misfortune.

Narcisistic womanizers. Like father, like son.

In the end everybody dies. Always. 

Why There is Hunger in the World

In the beginning, people reached to the sky above and took what they needed to eat. The sky tasted like ripe papaya, moist cinnamon cake, spicy tacos. Every one ate well.

One day some taller people got together and thought, “We can trick the others and make ourselves powerful.” They picked food from the sky and presented it in a pretty square box. “It’s so convenient!” the tall people said. “Our food will make you more beautiful not having to work so hard reaching for the sky! Get your food from us! The price? Give us whatever you have!”

The shorter people brought them their possessions. They forgot about the sky and to look up. Now they only looked down at their hands and the exchange for food and possessions. Eventually their possessions ran out and they grew hungry. The tall people kept their secret. To this day, world hunger remains.

EVEN SAMURAIS WRITE POETRY

Published in The Squawkback June 2014

My 6-and-a-half-year-old son wanted to be a policeman for Halloween. But the monster-sized Halloween costume outlet store that I took him to was out of policeman costumes except for one that was missing the hat yet still cost twenty-five bucks. His second choice was the U.S. Army soldier fatigues. I thought back to the 5:30 p.m. newscasts about Iraq in which my son said his favorite part was the fallen heroes. Young faces and life stories in thirty-seconds. The face of death this fall as we notice how so many old movie stars are dying this time of year, and how much faster the yellow and red leaves are raining down upon us and the cooling earth as we pick out masks to laugh at death and gut the pumpkin into our own disguise. The fruits of summer off the withering vine to ease the tension of the decline, of our own death, inevitable.

I was aghast about the uniform, considering that after his business went bankrupt last year, my son’s father committed suicide by shooting himself in the heart in front of a fireman. But I remembered America’s wars and I didn’t want to dampen my son’s self-esteem with my disapproval lest he become depressed as a teenager and become homicidal rather than military.

He picked out a gun. He picked the Uzzi police gun. The salesman commented that he didn’t know police used Uzzis and I said, I didn’t know that the Army used Tommy guns like the packaging illustrated. Then the saleslady at the checkout accidentally dropped the Uzzi on the floor and broke its rat-a-tat-tat sound that would’ve made me insane eventually and thrown it across the room at some point, breaking it to stop the noise. Like my Aunt Ruthie did with my cousin Suzy’s pull-string Tom and Jerry doll that was given to me as a broken hand-me-down when I was a child visiting family in St. Louis one summer. Turns out it was the last Uzzi, so the saleslady gave it to us for free and we bought the Tommy gun too.

At home my son watches the Tom and Jerry’s best chase scenes DVD that his father’s brother gave him and he laughs and laughs at teeth being smashed out of Tom like keys on a piano. Later he imitates Jerry who had dropped light bulbs that smashed like bombs on the kitchen floor and scared Tom to death. I worry, then reflect that the Bhagavad Gita was written for the warrior class, and samurais wrote poetry. I love poetry. I also love to stab Caesar in the silent safety of backstage. The tension released. Darkness assuaged. My drama complete as I surrender and exhale, shrinking toward the tomb.

During the school day, my little boy lays his army costume out on the floor of his bedroom, feet facing the doorway. Like a soldier was melted by X-ray eyes. Only the shape of the cloth pants and shirt topped with the plastic meshed helmet reminds me a boy was once there. At night, my little boy wears the costume to sleep, and I lie beside him. Like the mother on the AOL news today who died of a broken heart after her son was killed in Iraq. I wonder if it’s me. I wonder if it’s me.

Prescribed Burns

One day the pesero door hits me in the head, the toilet overflows and all I consume is Diet Coke and nicotine. The next I’m helping you pick out new wallpaper for your downstair’s bathroom, 

wondering what pesticide to apply to your lawn. 
So easy. Too right

For inside me the thief and beggar give way to the lover who flees for her life, with eyes closed and $5 in quarters in her fist she proceeds alone through airport security. The woman who stands at the bar with arms folded in front of her chest, head soaked in lime juice and Corona.

How do I explain that to her the murk of Mexico City air tastes better than Rocky Mountain spring water. That condemned brick buildings with bird cages in the windows are more beautiful than gray wood boxes that strangle the prairie. I heard that some good stories still exist in your world. With the buffalo gone the Mountain Clover no longer nests and rangers must prescribe burns to return the Prairie National Grasslands to its right height to encourage the birds’ return.

I wait somewhere in a picture frame,

haunting old cigar rooms with bad dope.

I am but the wisdom teeth in my jewelry box,

old pain you ought to forget.

Let me die like old Aztec gods

flint rubble forever suffocating in humid hand-scratched tombs.

Forget me beneath Eiffel towards and old lovers without scent.

Forgive me for schizophrenic ancestors, shortness of breath

rough elbows and lost maps.

Love me as one day whistling at a grand slam,

bright-eyed under a Memorial Day sun.

Take me as medicine, some venom, some honey

and one winter morning the burn of my cigarette ash will land on your tongue 
and I will return.