{"id":7589,"date":"2017-06-12T12:26:21","date_gmt":"2017-06-12T18:26:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=7589"},"modified":"2017-06-12T12:26:21","modified_gmt":"2017-06-12T18:26:21","slug":"two-poems","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=7589","title":{"rendered":"Two Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"

Veronica McDonald<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Problem<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One plus one is eleven (or oney one)
\nplus zero equals eleventy.
\nThere is no such thing as oney one-ty.
\nOne crocodile plus one dog (Conan) equals death
\nif Conan is in the creek.
\nIt does not matter if you add the forty apples
\nSally stole from Jimmy
\nwhen Jimmy had eleventy apples
\nand six oranges.
\nThere are no such things as oranges
\nwhen you are looking for apples.
\nThere are no such things as apples
\nin a battle between croc and Conan.
\nOne Jimmy entered the water (searching for his apples)
\nminus one Sally who ran.
\nThis equals zero children (if one believes in children)
\nrunning barefoot in a swampy land.
\nOne twenty-forth Jimmy plus one eighth canine
\nequals one full crocodile
\nsubmerged and swimming away
\nin bobbing blood apples.
\nThere are no such things as blood oranges
\nwhen you are looking for Jimmy’s fingers.
\nThere are no such things as fingers (only ghosts of fingers)
\nwhen they’re gone.<\/p>\n

How many are left?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Old Woman<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There was an old woman who caught a fly
\nShe tried to eat it, I thought she would die
\nSo I stood up and swatted it out of her hands
\nGave it another good whack
\nto make sure it was dead
\nAnd killed the fly.<\/p>\n

She took out her box of fabric scraps
\nSewed the fly a tie of blue polka dots
\nFastened it with thread
\naround its head
\nAnd clothed the fly.<\/p>\n

She said a prayer over its wings
\nIn rambling nothings and very nice things
\nThen swallowed it whole
\nTold me it’s living inside her soul
\nin fly paradise
\nOf darkness, secrets, and lies.<\/p>\n

I watched in horror, held her back
\nTied her arms behind her back
\nForced her to swallow a spider, a bird, a cat
\nperhaps they’d eat the fly in her soul
\nBring her back.<\/p>\n

She coughed up a hairball
\nlaughed like a horse
\nAnd died of course.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

VERONICA MCDONALD<\/strong> is a fiction writer, poet, and mom. She holds an MA in Literature from American University in Washington D.C. Her short stories and poetry have recently appeared in Kaaterskill Basin Literary Journal<\/em>, Five on the Fifth<\/em>, Phantom Kangaroo<\/em>, and Gingerbread House Literary Magazine<\/em>, among others. She has a website: VeronicaMcDonaldAuthor.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Veronica McDonald     Problem   One plus one is eleven (or oney one) plus zero equals eleventy. There is no such thing as oney one-ty. One crocodile plus one dog (Conan) equals death if Conan is in the creek. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":7577,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7589","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-1Yp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7589"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7590,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7589\/revisions\/7590"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}