Two Poems
by Daniela Olszewska
after yr last abortion, things got a little crazy
i put a firstplace
tangerine in yr wet
t-shirt pocket + we both
received more
than a few credibly
detailed death threats.
a doctoral student
who might be our blood
donor sent us the worst
of it in camp-
fire lingo. flummoxed,
we sexdanced
our way back
to the stegosaurus-
shaped truckstop:
it was high time
we started making
us some dioramas
of our woefully
cognitive goldens.
on the correlation between thumb-sucking + promiscuity
audibly, visibly, i cradle
the right kind of stranger
danger + jump off
the train bound for mississippi.
with surprisingly little
to hide, i snap
at the pheromone
monitor on my wrist until
the magnolia trees fall
back into peripheral.
he assists with the suturing
of the big digit. I'd always
been terrible at telling
the difference between
good, bad touch. even then,
i could tell i was merely
being settled for, on. last assembly,
they announced that everyone—
minus me—was allowed to
put in a guesstimate.
whomever came closest
would win the petri
dishes the nice people
from the institute left behind
in the girls' locker room
where i left before i met
every other first benchmark.
Daniela Olszewska was born in Wroclaw, Poland, grew up in the area known as Chicagoland, and is currently pursuing her MFA at the University of Alabama. She is the author of five chapbooks, including The Twelve Wives of Citizen Jane (Spooky Girlfriend Press, 2010) and Citizen Jane Trains For Many Different Kinds of Careers (horse less press, forthcoming).