Volume 69, Number 2 · Spring 2020
About Issues Submit The Peak

Lucky

Martha Silano

Lucky he used a paddle and a belt
not a rod with a nail sticking out

Lucky I was his favorite
that he did not crack my skull

Lucky I loved ice cream
gained thirty pounds

Lucky he called me Dumb Bunny
Otherwise I’d be cocksure

Lucky my mom didn’t leave him
so we had a house

Lucky he kept it in his pocket that forceful Valentine
Had the sense to drop him

Lucky I could move away
That a college said yes

Lucky I loved baggy jeans
That not one lawyer stalked me

Lucky I had spit—from spey—a sharp and pointy stick
Lucky I had vinegar—vyn egre—Old French for sour wine

Lucky I can count on one carbuncled foot
the times I couldn’t run

Lucky I had an unfetching mustache
Didn’t shave or pluck

Lucky I laughed at the stand examiner’s dumb-blonde jokes
that no one had me in that puke-green Forest Service truck

Lucky to be quick with getaway schemes
Let’s meet up later
after I’ve showered

Lucky I wasn’t followed

Lucky I was lucky
except maybe twice

Lucky I didn’t ask for it
with pouty lips push-up bra crop top

Lucky I never loved the outdoors
or bars or rest stops or conference rooms

Lucky I stopped going out
don’t answer the door
not even for UPS

Lucky I drape myself in bulky fabric
Cover my eyes

Martha Silano is the author of Gravity Assist, Reckless Lovely, and The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception, all from Saturnalia Books. She is also co-author of The Daily Poet: Day-by-Day Prompts for Your Writing Practice (Two Sylvias Press). Martha’s poems appear in Poetry, the Paris Review, and American Poetry Review, among others. Awards include North American Review’s James Hearst Poetry Prize and the Cincinnati Review’s Robert and Adele Schiff Award in Poetry. She teaches at Bellevue College.