Some poems by Allison Meraz
Hail, Indiana
Sloppy July—my husband and I
are on the road to Splitsville.
He drives me
home to a wicked embrace;
dumplings of Midwest ice
blame me for his mistress.
He can't stand
to see me like this, he says,
so don't you dare look at me.
I'm already beat
by the weather ahead,
hail, how does it happen.
I now know nothing
of atmosphere and elements;
howls and subtle blows,
bruising the wind, surround us.
Lost Dog
Dogs are funny that way.
I pray to her dead owner,
send her back, let her
not suffer, Shelia,
half hairless, flea-scarred epileptic
squatting in the sunshine
of a functional new family
or in the off-leash pastures
of the canine hereafter, perhaps
she found her bone.
I hope you learn your lesson,
hell bound master, belt snapper,
dog whupper, old choke chain monger.
Dogs are funny that way, you'd say,
laying us all down
where we'd been bad.
Soiled on the carpet.
I.D. tags side by side,
yours on your throat
like a locket, mine on my wrist—
If lost please contact…
we both have the same address.
Where else could she be?
Lost for the first time
the night of the funeral.
After the wake, full moon,
hushed streets, I'm frantic,
I'm her, sniffing each tree,
inhaling dog after dog,
come and gone.
Dragon Palace
The usual woman in black slacks
hustles me up three flights
to the oily table beside the dumbwaiter
where chop whacks and steam rise from the kitchen.
They switch from English to Cantonese,
crash dishes at the corner sink
and never fix the bathroom door's busted lock.
Here I'm like the hanging peach ducks,
or the rubber koi suspended
in a pond of blue epoxy, trapped.
But she will not win this time.
I will face down the intimidation
she relishes as her sole job perk.
She slings the plate of squid chow mein,
and I'm a whipped dog for the noodles boiled
to firm disintegration; my teeth are useless.
I hold one chopstick flat and dip with the other,
the stork's beak I learned from the Vietnamese kids
scooping gobs with a wrist flick.
I ignore the fork she twirls like a carrot—
at least she's taught me persistence.
She leans against the paneling, eyeing me
suck noodles and linger over the tentacles.
She stiffens to clear my dish but
NO I will say. This time I've rehearsed.
This will not be Algebra where Ms. Gonzalez
gave me a D because she couldn't decipher
the grade book lines, and I never spoke up.
I'll close my eyes and savor warm NO.
She dips into her apron pocket for a fortune cookie
and rolls it in her palm like dice
to crackle the wrapper. She yawns
and looks at the clock. I sweat in the chair
where a bigger tip would sit.
Maybe she's been on her feet all day.
But it's her job.
I must concentrate.
She swaps my plate for a fortune cookie.
The red neon from the window marks her like a goddess
who knows better. I bet she fizzes with triumph
as I break up the cookie. The squid wasn't bad,
but I'm still hungry.
Just cookie. A dud: I'm convinced
she saved it for me, all wisdom and no answers
for the quiet one who observes too much.
Surely she lives with fortune and understands
we are all superstitious, but I would dive into a pool
where someone drowned. That is the difference.
Next time I'll adopt a new strategy, make it stick.
I count out the tip, carefully.
Allison Meraz holds a B.A. in English from the University of California, Irvine, and an M.F.A. in
Creative Writing from the University of Arizona. A Pushcart Prize nominee and former poetry editor for
Sonora Review, her work has appeared in various publications, including Quarterly West and Faultline.
She lives in Sacramento, California.