Fish for lunch
For breakfast, I opened a tin of sardines in oil
I don’t care for any fish, but it was all I had in the larder
My mother used to work at a canning factory
putting sardines in a tin, she and other women sat
by a conveyer belt working fast for a lousy income.
When she came home, the unsavory smell followed
clung to her like an old winter coat, wet and formless
yet making its presence unavoidable.
We didn’t have a bathroom, but every Saturday mother
took the tin-bath down from the wall, that was
when we children had to sit in the hallway while she
bathed, telling each other ghost stories.
There was no TV back then we didn’t have a phone
if people were sick, the ambulance arrived too late.
There were children’ hour with stories of princesses
and kings in a big castle never thought how grotesque
the tales screamed of inequality.
Life is strange who would think I would end up in
a big apartment with a sea view; I gave the tin of sardines
to the neighbour’s cat.
How's your old conveyer belt
Are you keeping slim with a little help
Your resistance
Is strong I sense
As long as you don't start to belch
I close my eyes and the world dissolves into little stars.
Windows and shadows taper off into unknown distances of space in sickly, bruised, yellow-greens and poisonous magenta.
With whisps like ghosts that arrive in clouds and vibrate in the center of this not vision.
When they are sliced by imposing rings of pale blue and green from the left,
washing away like a beachy horizon.
Until it fades away once more into a grotesquely stained carpet pattern crawling with ants
That moves as if on a conveyer belt.
There is a fine black point in the distance that radiates with a distinctive sting.
It begins, with instances of light that stretch and vibrate like sinew under beacons when the squinting makes the vision ripple
And flattens floating amber orbs until they burst.
The prickling landscape advances.
< once there was a redhead gal name lucy
now skit comes to mind is real juicy
job switching with the men
conveyer belt takes a spin
chocolate oh how did she loosey
Entry For Shani Fassbender's
Favorite Television Show / Episode Remembered
I Chose I Love Lucy
Written By Katherine Stella 7/1/11
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