December 2024
Bio Note: I am a poet and fiction writer. My most recent publication is an abecedarian prose poem titled “Mayfly” in the new anthology Fantastic Imaginary Creatures (Madville Publishing). I’m a retired university professor (almost always an adjunct) who now lives in Crisfield, Maryland with my husband, Bob Schreiber, and a rescue poodle named Junior.
Living in Paradise (Pop. 793)
Grand name for a little bit of nothing:
Post office, gas station, bait store.
New dollar store under construction.
Got married right out of high school.
Wasn’t the sex. Had plenty in the pickup
since junior year. If we stay married
forty-four years, like my parents, that’s
sixteen thousand, seventy-one days and nights,
counting leap years. I’m good with numbers.
I’m the checker in lane five at Food Lion
down the road. Spend all day shining that
red light on bar codes. I dream of SKUs.
He dreams of snakes. He works days on
a crawlspace crew, installing sump pumps.
Kills a couple snakes a month, all year round.
It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it. Joke
was funny the first time he said it. I know
we have a snake under our trailer. I’ve seen
her slide through a gap in the skirting, but
I’m not telling him. I mean, she just wants to
slip into a hidey hole, out of the cold wind,
curl up nice and cozy in a pile of dry leaves,
sleeping, and safe all winter long. Some nights
I think I’d like that, too. Wouldn’t you?
©2024 Pat Valdata
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