Shenandoah Volume 68, Number 1
Volume 68, Number 1 · Fall 2018

All Our Aggregate Flu Shots

Ye olde space heater gets some exercise.

I sit at the head of a bed or the foot of a table,

liquored up, cleaned up nice.

When haven’t I donned gay apparel?

I’d do a lot of things for some stuffing:

a body cavity to fill.

Yuletide and I finally remember

to get that mole checked out.

If staying in Denver counts, then yes

I am traveling somewhere sunny.

Women’s college basketball is back,

so I zone out setting up

cheerleader + point guard

blind dates in my head.

A mouse climbs the baseboard.

My mom tells me that if she sends grapefruit

in the mail and FedEx leaves it outside,

the little cells of juice will burst and go bland.

This is firsthand.

I tell her I don’t have a chimney,

but I nailed some socks to the wall.

And maybe not, to the club-soda fix

for the historical stains we grind into our fabric.

If there’s decaf, I’ll have some that’s mostly milk.


Alicia Mountain is the author of the collection High Ground Coward (University of Iowa Press), which won the Iowa Poetry Prize, and the chapbook Thin Fire (BOAAT Press). She is a lesbian poet, critic, and educator based in Denver and New York. Keep up with her @HiGroundCoward.