at first (or always), but pronounce my
last name like a crackling fire or that degree is wasted.
I guess I knew the job wasn’t concrete (fiddlesticks!)
But I thought I’d give it a blinded effort or two,
for lack of funds, for lack of activity, for that good old
couch-crashing creed that seemed to taste my heart.
So I was out on my can, but I wasn’t like her yet,
with the effects of blond dye and the menopausal symptoms
that left her like bark. So, right now, as I write this,
I’m not in grace’s shadow; Swan Lake never
called to me with its beaks. So that blinded effort or two,
it never paid off in golden bars. Fiddlesticks, fiddlesticks,
my curse jar is exploding like a pyrotechnic hoax
and I have gone and over-exercised my violin.
Amanda Tumminaro lives in the U.S. Her poetry has appeared in Cottonwood, Spoon River Poetry Review and Freshwater among others. Her first poetry chapbook “The Flying Onion”, will be released through The Paragon Journal in April of 2018.
