wicked alice| fall 2010


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Teresa Petro-Micchelli

 

Bob Dylan’s Lost Children

In a rest stop bathroom

somewhere in Kentucky

I ran into my stripper friend.

 

I was throwing blackened fetuses

into the waste bin and real plastic-like dolls too.

You don’t want to get caught, she said.

 

So I went into a stall—dumped those

unborn babies in and began flushing them—

some got stuck in the white oval mouth.

 

When the water turned those inky bundles

to flesh and their lips opened like fish,

and when they cried save me— I ran outside.

 

I stood in front of a tree with my friend,

You should come strip with me tonight,

she said dragging hard on a long cigarette.

 

But what about Robert? I asked.

And then I wondered about Robert

if he was my boyfriend, I’d never even heard of him.

 

Oh just come on. Forget him. She tugged

my hand, And for God’s sake throw those

in the dumpster in the back before the cops get you.

 

I felt the plastic bag make my palm sweat,

held tight to the bow I’d tied;

I watched as those nearly-made babies

 

kicked their milky dark feet inside,

then I walked back behind the bathroom

and tossed the bag over my shoulder without looking,

flicked the cigarette I’d been smoking,

watched as dust turned to fire at my feet.

 


 

Teresa Petro-Micchelli is published online with Nasty Safari and No Teeth. She has print publications in Backbone Mountain Review, Little Patuxant Review, and Review Revue. She is poetry editor for shady side review and serves as an assistant editor for The Fourth River. She currently resides in Pittsburgh where she often thinks of installing a sun.