the unemployment blues
by heather
(two thousand and one)

I’ve taken to saying everything three times. Not because I don’t feel heard but because I like the way foccaccia sounds.
Give me foccaccia, foccaccia, focaccia.
The grocer hears, feta, feta, feta; the librarian, Layton, Layton, Layton; my husband, later, later, later.

It isn’t justice I’m after, it’s perennial lust. I’m not shallow,
I’m fair and giving and have given myself over to cream injected chocolate covered
donuts and now trying to fill in time between therapy appointments. Saying yes, yes to what is asked of me; no, no to what I’m told to admonish with fear and in a vacuum.

It’s not that I’m not heard. (A volley of curses at the tables beside me. Spoken by prophets). I’m not bothered, I’m squared with a world that can’t hear the wind whistle through the pines. I’m not bothered with spit on the sidewalk or lazy laps or dreams of lotto windfalls or even t.v. commercials or what colour I should dye my hair. I still shuck oysters and sing in a choir and smoke weed.

Anger pools just beside me. I’ve learned to extract some and bury the rest, letting experience bubble and boil; not following innocent hearts around anymore. Unhh uh. Not this twisted, oyster-shucking, sidewalk-spitting nature lover. I’m getting a job.

The poor hand each other whatever they have. Not for them the loaded return; not like a Bavarian sweet, like a horn-o-plenty not calculated by need, not like some Lady Macbeth smearing blood on a carpet, seething, seething with a purpose.

I don’t know.

Flowers, in a vase?
, precious favourites and an inestimable fortune in conspiracy theories and potting soil ready for me to birth baby spiders, cat grass and Buddhist pines. That’s probably all that matters anyway.

S’long as you have lots of potting soil, I’m all for poverty. `

Teflon and trombones. I’m picturing jazz-filled rooms past the foyer of PizzaPizza; a cat dressed up like Aunt Jemima. Onward Christian soldiers and all that. So strung out on chocolate sauce and Sartre since my baby left me. Oh yeah. Since my baby left me. Doo wop. Doo wang.

I’m getting a job.

I will recite the creed. I will wear matching socks. I will write little P’s on the calendar for payday and period and S for sunny.

…and I promise to stay off the grass.