Says they
Sell little
Girls
On eBay
U can
Get extra
For blondes
Like my
Cute
Daughters
People
Start selling
Them
When
They turn
Ten
Parents
Mostly
But if
They
Don’t want
To get
Sold they
Can come
Live in
Oklahoma
City
With him
And
My mom
And
They don’t
Have to
Go to
School
And they
Can have
All the candy
They want
Which is
Of course
All the candy
In the world
And also
A horse
Do you
like horses?
He asks.
How’s that sound?
My mother thinks he is very funny.
can open doors
which is pretty
extraordinary
for a dog and
which makes him
slightly better
than her boyfriend
actually no
he too can open
doors would
probably hold
a door for you
if you were
of the weaker
sex which you
probably are
but which does
not redeem him
as a human
being not that
I’m one to go
around redeeming
humans and I don’t
mind if someone
holds the door
for me really
out of laziness
I suppose my college
bf fred used to
hold the door
for me he’d say
after you Madam
ma-damn girlfriend
which I thought
was pretty
hilarious he hated
the pictures
of women
with big boobs
that my stepdad
would send but
he loved big
boobs still does
probably though
I no longer
have them but
still he’ll
sometimes
drunkenly text
and I’m like
hi fred my husband
found these
texts once
when we were
away somewhere
fancy and he was
all you love fred
and I was all
no not really
you want fred
to fuck you
and I was like
nah maybe finger
not really I just
said oh stop
you’re being
silly tho he’s not
a silly man
not very silly
at all funny but
not silly my
mother the one
who cannot
pass a banana
without
pretending
it’s a telephone
or a man
without
pretending
he hung
the moon
or is well
hung haha
she is silly
and very proud
of her dog
who she named
tito after
the vodka
and who
on command
will open
the door
for her bf
who will
then open
the door
for her
until all the
doors in Oklahoma
are swinging
on their
hinges I tell you
if you’re not
tied down
to the ground
that wind
will blow
you away
pool is ooh
la la blue is
so blue and
pretty like
my mother
who doesn’t
swim only
lies only
lies by her
swimming
pool getting
brown as
a bean as
a penny as
the sadder
she is and
I count
pain in
sadness too
the more
she lies
the longer
like after
her spine
surgery
when she’d
use me
as a crutch
I was her
crutch to
get to
the pool
and there
I shaved
her legs
she hates
stubble
does not
mind injustice
but hates
stubble and
as now too
as her bf has
kicked her
to the curb
not his
curb because
she would
rumple his
wife’s
hydrangeas
but her
curb but
she will not
sit on her
curb picking
the scabs
of her knee
like I like
to do
no she will
make her
way to the
pool it makes
me feel
better she says
does no one
want me
to feel
better she says
it is 110
degrees in
oklahoma I
am happier
when I’m
tan I don’t
want to
talk to you
or anybody
stop just
let me bake
here in
the sun just
let me be
Nicole Callihan writes poems and stories. Her books include This Strange Garment (Terrapin 2023), SuperLoop, and the poetry chapbooks: The Deeply Flawed Human, Downtown, and ELSEWHERE (with Zoë Ryder White), as well as a novella, The Couples. Her work has appeared in Kenyon Review, Colorado Review, Conduit, The American Poetry Review, and as a Poem-a-Day selection from the Academy of American Poets. She has received support from the Rockefeller Foundation, Ludwig Vogelstein, and the Sustainable Arts Foundation. SLIP, which won an Alma Award, will be published by Saturnalia in Spring 2025.