Stuff the gluten in potatoes, suicide-up with Aunt Mary. Can you smell the garlic of mute? Slits her veins in a kitchen-less room with a block top counter. A stampede of kids and husband, full as a field mouse gorge through TV dinners. Green peppers flatter meatballs, sweet sweat of Mom’s psychosis. Neighbors perpetrate paprika of paranoia. Brown in a lampless room, voices pierce, mix, spit out bites of contention. Ravioli is cockful of Crisco, can’t suck sauce under 350 degrees. Baby veal thighs bleed tender to touch, tremor of bourbon licks their flanks. The burn hurls through cigarette smoke after carcass.



Meg Tuite is author of four story collections and five chapbooks. She won the Twin Antlers Poetry award for her poetry collection, Bare Bulbs Swinging. She teaches writing retreats and online classes hosted by Bending Genres. She is also the fiction editor of Bending Genres and associate editor at Narrative Magazine.  http://megtuite.com