at 40th and Broadway, Death’s 

warm body almost hugs me

 

as a SUV almost flattens me

into one of Mama’s blueberry pies

 

hot from a Thanksgiving oven

three decades ago

 

and it’s still steaming somewhere 

within my cluttered hippocampus.

 

At 40th and Broadway, thankfully

I’m not a blueberry pie. 

 

According to Consciousness 

as illuminated by my high school

 

guidance counselor, I’m alive —

yet do I deserve to be?

 

Thirty Thanksgivings ago,

Papa cut into a blueberry pie

 

a week after Aunt Mary’s neck 

snapped. Now I dive

 

into Mama’s Royal Café.

With a smack

 

of crimson lipstick, a waitress 

nods one greasy hello.

 

“A slice of blueberry pie, please.”

“We’re all out, hun.”

 

“Just give me all the blue-

berries you have.

 

I’ll flatten them

like a SUV squishing a brain.”

 

Published in Persimmon Review (Issue 6: Intersections, Pages 35 – 36) and in Monetized Happiness