Food Stamps and Underwear
A draft by Katherine Gotthardt
When asked about holes in my underwear, why it’s taking up space in my drawer, I ask instead
if pink isn’t my color.
A draft by Katherine Gotthardt
When asked about holes in my underwear, why it’s taking up space in my drawer, I ask instead
if pink isn’t my color.
Dankness of the parking garage.
First level always, because
my father liked to be early.
For my mother-in-law, Doris “Dorie” Gotthardt, who, battling cancer, sang at sunrise service at Colonial Beach.
-Katherine Gotthardt I am thinking of my last mistake. Not the previous one. The one that will do me in. The one that will cut through pieces of my life like a butcher on amphetamines. Uncareful. Uncaring. Unbelievable. I read the story of the poor man who got pulled onto train tracks by a dog …
-Katherine Gotthardt
This morning and I’m thinking
of the wolpertinger,
shy but fierce creature
of the night.
Bavarian, so it sounds exotic.
What I really want is this:
to go back to the time on the front lawn,
worn blanket on crabgrass and wildflowers,
baby dolls and tea sets and nothing,
nothing more than ants to worry about.
This morning, the coffee pot looked different,
my husband having switched out
one gadget for another, far too complicated
for such an early hour. And so for a change,
I make tea with a satisfying plop of heavy cream,
squall of sweetener, one sip reminding me of Mrs. Torpey,
and Mrs. McGrievy, and that tall, smiling lady my friend and I visited
My dear friend,
this morning at 4
I found myself
breathing into the fur of my dog’s thick neck
and thought, perhaps
I’ve been holding too tightly
to everything that lives –
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” – Albert Einstein