Trio, or Three Sour Grapes
A. A. Reinecke
A Fuck You
hey brother / fuck you for being tan indoors / like you haven’t been to class in weeks / but Ian / took you to the: Hamptons / because you’re dying / like Jell-O hellfire laps at your mortal / ankles / in the / drunk disarray; some party / but doesn’t / bite / fuck you because all you eat is shit / like yogurt / and it slides to the shape / you want it / like milk and cream yield to / you / like: life / hey brother / last week at prom you caught / company / in flesh / like you never brought back any / salmon from your / trip / the Adirondacks / like when I make you / milk hot / you wait / for it to / cool like only a coward runs / from the draft / under the door/ like she starved herself / so you’d touch / her / like the preparation of sacrifice / for altar / like it was against marble you / fucked / the bathroom at the / Waldorf / Astoria / a lovely / bathroom / like it smelled of cinnamon lotion / and resistant / starvation like laurel hung / to please you / to please stop / please / fuccckkk / fuck / fuckmeharder / like Yale took you / when it shouldn’t have / like when you / broke Ian’s nose he let it / go / and your coup for class / president / ended in / rococo: re-election / candy wrappers / littered the hall / found in January: you owe Dad / a fortune / maybe / a life / like you never paid him for / the baby Snickers / or the condoms / or the bourbon / you drained / or / the hell / the other kind / of which you dealt / so much.
A Happening
It was happening: a child in the backseat
of a car. A parking lot behind a bar warm with
May. Like milkshake air. Like cornbread buttered
that’s how you know it’s summer: you can’t
trust the butter to: cold air.
Say blane. Coconut cove. Private marshmallow
weekendwaltz. Pearly white between the seat
imported crumbs from domestic chips: New
Hampshire snacks from California and his hands
greasy with lust of the kill.
He’d done it: conquered stateliness or folded
oats into grain, 7-11 drugstores, lollipops with taffy knit
in, concrete pools, mediocre sex, banana ice
cream, a drink straw caught like bug in amber fucked
by circumstance. I’ll still hit you.
If you say it. That’s a dare. The child’s mouth had
bled because tapered candles are red and nobody lets
anybody get away with anything. My dad don’t drink he
swims a breast stroke motion with his arm
is an underhand to the: jaw.
It was happening: a child in the backseat
of a car. The blood had veined the skin hot like what they
made Rome with. He cursed into leather because
dying tastes like: salt. Like potato chips and they only
filled the bag. Half full.
Last Night’s Gin on Your Mouth for Breakfast
It is cold like a prison like Antarctica gray and on
the folded bit a dribbling of blood the shape of:
Minnesota. St. Paul. That’s where he’s from.
St. Paul. It is noon now. That was breakfast.
The room was a sideboard with bits of fractured
glass tacked up. The windows spoke in tongues like
chemise powder blue lapis like eyeshadow
colors like Maybelline or my lust strained through
milk. Q: Do you love me? A: I don’t know. Chai was
sweet grain melted like the wetness of my mouth
and your tongue tastes still like Ian and
his carpet and his gin like a plow for planting
prohibition. Q: The flask? A: No. My plastic cup
membrane shed quartz like history nabbed from
headband. Q: You eating? Coffee? Anything?
A: No. St. Paul. That’s where he’s from.
St. Paul.
BIO
Alexandra A. Reinecke is a writer and journalist who uses writing as a tool to encourage empathy and affect positive change.
