Lynne Viti
Cyber Monday
Dreams of incivility in grocery lines,
on airplanes, captive audiences of
young women, eyes downcast, heads down
while a bully in a black t-shirt castigates them.
Then a dream of riding an old two-cycle engine
Yamaha motorcycle through
a cemetery, I cruise along a gravel road
helmetless and fearless, the road
curves this way and that, till I reach
a dead end, a semicircle of half-built temples,
alabaster, deserted by masons and carpenters.
I head back, to what we still call civilization,
that made by civis, the citizen. My sister,
my girlfriends gather around. We feel fine,
but we’ve got an intestinal infection,
an orange parasitic worm. Here, my doctor says,
handing me a vial of pills. Take as directed,
take with food or milk, take the full course.
Call me in three years if no improvement.
Lynne Viti teaches in the Writing Program at Wellesley College, Massachusetts. Her poetry chapbook, Baltimore Girls, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in February 2017. Her poems appear most recently in The South Florida Poetry Journal, Little Patuxent Review, Mountain Gazette, Amuse-Bouche, The Paterson Review, Drunk Monkeys, Cultured Vultures, and Right Hand Pointing. She blogs at stillinschool.wordpress.com.
SUBMIT to the Transition Project via our SUBMITTABLE site.