Feature Poet:
Maggie Balistreri

How to Break Up with Me

How to Break Up with Me
Please leave a message after the tone.
Don't fucking call me up on the phone

And say, "Um, what's say we meet in the park?"
Have me think we're down for a lark

So I show up with flowers and legs shaved,
In a great mood; hell, I even waved

To that fuckhead neighbor of mine
Who always reeks of Manischevitz wine.

What did I know? At one point, I ran
Down Riverside to get to you. If I'd known your plan

("Um, Maggie, we need to talk . . . ." and so forth.)
I would have lollygagged; walked north

To 104th where all the old people sit
Instead of gingerly jumping the dog shit

At 103rd despite my arthroscopic surgeried knee.
(Remember? I told you. Ninth grade. I grew three

Inches in a month. That's when I started with the tai
Chi. You called it a pussy sport till I made you fly

Across the room with just that push-hand move.
And then you recanted. Big of you to approve.)

So I lope up to you like a moron unaware
That you're tossing me like yesterday's underwear.

I knew something was up when you gently guided
My roaming hand away from you. Who knows when you decided

That you "wanted more" out of "the relationship." I'm sorry, the what?
Baby, there's no third entity called "the relationship"--"the relationship"
means me. Cut

The shit. Spit it out. "The relationship is lacking." Is that right?
Okay. Fine. But why didn't you tell me last night

Over the phone, when we made these plans? Why drag
My carcass to the park? Why the ambush? I'm not trying to nag.

I understand. It's over. I'll carry on. But the "at least have the decency
To do it face to face" crap never crossed my lips. And why the discrepancy

Between what you do in person and what you reserve
For fiber optics? Because if I recall, you first asked me out over the
phone; at a loss for nerve

When you're on the spot, but cocksure when I'm in the hot seat?
There's decency. So, in the future, if you're gonna break up, don't meet

A girl in person on a beautiful night, then shove a grapefruit in her face.
Please leave a message after the tone. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to
go give you your space.

Miss Pronunciation

Why come my kid can't read?
The extent of my job is to breed.
It falls to the schools
To edumacate fools
New teachers! That's what we need!

Supposably it's all my fault
I'm too busy guzzling malt
But that's ludiscrisp!
It's a will-o'-the-wisp
To think I can speak English as good as a Balt.

Who you calling alliterate? My ass!
I'll have you know, that's how I pass
The time on the bowl
That's when I scroll
Down the Bible I stoled at mass.

I'm a verocious reader, I'll have you know!
At Gristedes, the first place I go
Is the magazine rack
With every other sad sack
We conversate. About horrorscopes. I'm a Leo.

It's my uninalienable right
To stay stupid and become a blight.
I veg happily
Expecially
Since Sega Genesis is such a delight!

I do smart things! Last year I brung
My daughter to some far-flung
Escavation dig
It was no shindig:
Rockeologists smell like dung.

You think I got eyes at the back of my head?
Parifrial vision's all's I got instead.
She has a liberry card
But she's a tub of lard.
That's what I scream at her from my bed.

I'm drowding in work of my own!
So leave me the hell alone!
My kid is your problem
Besides, there's a new album
I need to listen to while I yak on the phone.

Relax. I'll get her a prescription to a magazine.
That'll raise her score. That's what I seen
On my program yesterday night.
There's a lot of insight
If you can sit through Channel 13.

I hope I clearified misconceptions you had.
So don't call me and tell me I'm bad.
My mental facilities is great.
So don't call me and berate
Me for your failure. Really, it's sad.
Oh, I understand your fustration. I don't mean to gloss
Over this problem. I know there's been a loss
Of regard for school. Oh, and when
And if you ever call me again,
Be sure to pacifically ax for the boss.

Shake

I'm wary, not hard hearted.
I've lost illusions, and I've started

To sigh as I extend my hand
At introductions. I leave the room unscanned

For possibilities. I used to be bold
If memory serves. Another time, I would have told

You about your smile, about your charms
Never mind rejection, never mind how it disarms,

So fearless was I, then. No longer. You're taken.
Not interested. Recently broke up. Trust shaken.

Need to work things out on your own a bit--
I know. I know. I've heard it. I've said it.

(Well, maybe not said it; that would be cliched.)
But my dejection hasn't so chilled, hasn't so stayed

My hand that I don't still stick it out and try for a smile.
But I know it's different now, it's been a while

Since motion towards doesn't need recoiling first
Like that stick-shift car I drove once, hands clenched, lips pursed

As I tried to get it going. Kicked back before it shot ahead.
Movement forward needs fuel; it's regression-fed.

Counterintuitive motion. Or maybe not--
That is, after all, how a pinball's shot:

Pull back, let go, spring forth. Don't tilt.
First moves fight an incline, and your past drags like silt,

Like the kind I kicked up as that hatchback lurched
Me towards my lover-to-be who, when I arrived besmirched

And awkward, hung back, but at last stroked my arm's length,
Which made my muscles clench, from thrill not strength.

But my excitement was misread, misinterpreted as tension
And I was fatalistic then, which means a coward, so I didn't mention

What I'd thought about on the drive up and towards
My potential love. Instead I cursed the cords

Of muscle visible in my neck and dreaded the likely mess
Of the date that had promised much beyond that caress.

One such awkward minute slackens
Force. One minute more and it blackens

Your heart. The thing to do, what I should have done
Was reach out my hand, not let fear stun

Me into my vice of choice: ironic detachment, cool distance.
Fine for fiction. Unwise in life. Permit no resistance.

Muscles build when tears from exertion mend.
The heart's a fist in size and shape. Unclench. Extend.

Tell It to Nelson Mandela

I was sitting in a bar, minding my own, flipping through a magazine,
When some whining chick beside me gave me cause to vent my spleen.

She was talking about how hard it was to meet someone who'd be good to her,
She'd been "hurt before," is the clichÚ I was led to infer.

She then went on, unabashed, about a former fling's alleged indiscretion.
And her struggle to "heal the wounds," is the popular expression.

Now, I didn't even know this girl's name, and I mean, intentionally,
And I wouldn't ordinarily respond to anyone intemperately.

In fact, I was on the verge of interrupting this stranger's sob story
With, "Mi devi scusare; non parlo inglese. . . . . So sorry."

But again, it was a bar, I was, how shall we say? three sheets to the wind,
So I downed my shot, spun around, faced the pasty-faced girl so thin-skinned,

And I was heard by all to say: "Oh, tell it to Nelson Mandela."
Because if you wouldn't tell your sob story to Nelson Mandela,

Do me a favor: Don't tell it to me.
Especially if we're in a bar and there's a lot of booze around and I'm a
bit tipsy.

Because although I am usually unfailingly polite,
Emboldened by my bourbon, I will set your banality aright.

And when I feel I am prompted to speak my mind and opine,
I'll knock you on your ass with logic; you'll end up supine.

Because that aristocracy of wretchedness your self-help ilk make up
Is just a figurehead of potency; just some pity-drama you make up.

Mandela emerged from prison with his fist pumping the air.
Your fist is balled up at your weeping eye despite my scornful stare.

Now I'm not saying it isn't possible that you've had your ups and your downs,
But you said, "I've been to hell and back!" and now look at the barflies'
frowns.

And I was heard by all to say: "Oh, tell it to Nelson Mandela."
Because if you wouldn't tell your sob story to Nelson Mandela,

Do me a favor: Don't tell it to me.
Especially if we're in a bar and there's a lot of booze around and I'm
obviously a bit tipsy.

Because although I am usually unfailingly polite,
Emboldened by my bourbon, I'll set your banality aright:

We're living in the greatest time in the greatest place on God's green Earth.
Don't fret the smallpox. Little threat of plague. We have vaccination at birth.

ur lives are longer but our leisure class does less and less.
Yet ironically, these diminished selves have increased needs to express.

So when my gimlet eye spots a sniveling trauma-champion's quivering lower lip,
I hightail it outta there; I give the sap the slip.

I'm too busy being grateful for the stiff-upper lip of each forebear
And heed the words of Epictetus (who, by the way, was lame): "Bear and
forbear."

So unless you have hard evidence of a flesh-eating disease or rubella,
Before you whine, run through this check: Would you tell it to Nelson Mandela?

You probably would! "Why not?" you say, since shame you have none.
And talk-show hosts have indulged you with clichÚs by the ton.

And I can just see it: you and Nelson sitting side by side
(And of course, me, at a distance, saying something snide):

"Oh Nelson, I know just how you feel. I can really sympathize.
In fact, I went through the exact same thing; so what I mean is, I empathize.

You see, I too felt all boxed in, imprisoned, so to speak,
Unjustly punished, come to think of it, just like that ancient Greek S

Socrates, was his name? Who remembers; oh, no matter, really.
Aren't you glad we can talk about such things? Aren't you glad we're
touchy-feely?"