ALLISON WHITTENBERG

 

ALLISON WHITTENBERG

 

Lag

 

When you realize,

‘Please return the library books

They’re on the table’

As her last words

Balances every ”I love you” she’d given

 

Instead of goodbye

The incessant, familiarity of instruction

the sum

of my mother

 

 

Watching Jordan’s Fall

 

… God, I hate November.

All the hope I had hoped

against hope for Jordan.

 

Dad beat Jordan, to

straighten him out, to show

Jordan, to silence him.

 

My brother lived until the next

season, onto the next winter,

very quiet like a fallen leaf.

 

 

 

Water’s Wine

 

The balance of bliss is pain

The balance of pain is enlightenment

The balance of enlightenment is more enlightment

The balance of more enlightenment is transcendence

The balance of transcendence is alienation

The balance of alienation is bliss

 

 

In It

 

We're all in this together

since

we're all in this together

until

we're all not in this together

because after

we're not in this together...

we will surely

fall

Apart.

 

 

Extant

 

shame on you

for eating flesh

the protein of your friends

(at least, you didn’t eat your sister)

but come on -- what were you thinking?

to maintain

survival excuses everything except when it doesn’t

shame

after your plane crashed into the Andes Mountains

after the impact, the crush of metal, the raging fire drowned by the snow

more bad luck

the avalanche, the avalanches

being lost, being broken

and you can’t eat the rugby balls and the plane food is gone

the hunger, the relentless cold, the hunger, the screams,

where was the utility?

civilization sent search parties that couldn’t find you

shame

nourishment was only a 60 mile walk away or at least the goat herders

you had to find your own cure

you saved yourself

shame

 

ALLISON WHITTENBERG 

ALLISON WHITTENBERG is a Philadelphia native who has a global perspective. If she wasn’t an author she’d be a private detective or a jazz singer. She loves reading about history and true crime. Her other novels include. Sweet Thang, Hollywood and Maine, Life is Fine, Tutored and The Sane Asylum