Mom sent me a lump of coal for Christmas
in a bright red box & a green bow
radiating holiday cheer;
carefully wrapped in tissue.
I imagine her sitting at the kitchen
table finishing off her third Manhattan,
contemplating an unlit cigarette:
Pauline needs a new coat, Roxy loves
the beach but what about that Lexy,
he’s always such a disappointment.
I wonder where she found it;
Facebook Marketplace,
the Etsy Shop for Recalcitrant Children.
Maybe she asked a neighbor, to elicit
sympathy for having such an ungrateful
son.
I can see her searching diligently to find one
that was not too round, not too sharp
& the perfect shade of Dickensian black.
She packaged it with love; flawless
square corners & in big block letters
printed Fragile next to my address.
She’s filing her nails while they’re dragging the lake
“Watching the Detectives,” Elvis Costello
She wears you out
like a name held too long,
beats you hollow
until you love the wrong place.
I need a drink, she says
need a real man
anything that doesn’t flinch
& won’t disappear
after I leave the room,
don’t be shy, pray
like you mean it.
You’re crazy
lost, a puppet twitching
under a loose lightbulb
god’s ghost
curls in the misfire
just enough
to buy your excuses
to bleed out quietly
& ruin your alibi.
Alex Stolis has had poems published in numerous journals. His chapbook, Postcards from the Knife-Thrower’s Wife, was released by Louisiana Literature Press in 2024, RIP Winston Smith from Alien Buddha Press 2024, and The Hum of Geometry; The Music of Spheres, 2024by Bottlecap Press. He lives in Hudson Valley of New York with his partner, poet Catherine Arra. His favorite revenge movie is Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven.
