Mary K Gowdy
The Drain
I scrape crumbling, moist morsels
of trickle-down wealth, a home of my own,
my wanna-be lover
off my guests’ plate,
into the sink
where it empties into the drain
of silence.
Jules blames the older Russians.
Their lack of fight for their freedom
has dragged down that of her own country,
and I grab another plate to clean.
Short strands of my hair fall from my ponytail
to frame my vision, tickle my face
with whispers of feeling. A bitten-into piece
of steak flops into the sink’s metal bed,
inches away from the drain.
I’ll have to push it in.
Hang in there. It won’t be so bad. God is in control.
I turn on the food disposal—
Soul-mates aren’t biblical promises. Neither is a house
nor the American dream,
but my comforters don’t point that out
lest sadness expose their own idolatry.
—Can’t keep it on without the water or it’ll create fire.
I hate living
because there are never-ending dishes to clean. I’ll never leave
this kitchen, this drain
that swallows the crumbs of another’s feast.
My stomach growls. I scrape another stain away.
Blood. Guns. Bullets. Fires.
Earth. Bombs. Rubble. Liars.
The disposal screams against them in its teeth.
When will an AI robot replace me?
Words words words
words unspoken words misheard words ignored
All down the drain
of silence.
When I was a young girl,
I thought my parents had studied liberty
so that I could study poetry,
but as I watch everything slipping into the drain,
the disposal screaming,
I shove my hand in
to grasp what I feel owed, to grasp what I’ve grieved.
My blood spurts up into the sink bed
before flowing down the drain again.
Mary K Gowdy is the author of the poetry collections Leftover Thoughts (2024) and Where Have We Come From, Where Are We Going? (2022), as well as the chapbook Sensuality (2018). With Olivia J. Bennett, A. M. Tyson, Tyler Hoyle, Brittney Kristina, Sterling M.Z., Olivia Faye Scott, and Maddyson Wilson, Gowdy co-authored the multimedia collection Writing Out Our Twenties (2024). Also a fiction writer, her work has appeared in Better Than Starbucks, Bridge, The Anti-Misogyny Club, SpecPoVerse, and Sheila-Na Gig. A graduate of the University of North Texas, Gowdy works for a refugee resettlement agency in Texas.
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Like it. It’s been a rough time.