Tina Barry

Peonies

Not far from our new house in the country sits another house, a glorified trailer with an overstuffed flower garden. I drive past and wave enthusiastically to the owner, red-faced from his labors, who returns the gesture with equal zeal. Early in the evening, I decide to visit my neighbor. I choose clothing carefully: a flowered blouse, perfume. I’m not sure why. Besides the wave, he isn’t attractive: wispy strands of black hair barely stretch across an oversized head. A droopy stomach over droopy shorts. I find him beside his house, in a shed lit with a single bare light bulb. I’m here for the peonies, I say. We look at each other for a long moment. Up close, his nose is blunt. A fine white scar divides the bottom lip. Peonies, he says slowly, as if I’ve uttered the correct password.

Table Talk

My mother tells her friend on the phone about my father’s latest misdeeds: he’s lost money at the track, meant for my brother’s tenth birthday party, a no-big-deal family thing at a diner, but still. Her voice gets screechy as she talks of the boy he was caught fondling in the bathroom of a bowling alley. The worst part: the dumb schmuck doesn’t even bowl. I don’t need to hear the flat “ah-has” and “hmms” of the listener to know she’s not interested. Mother sits at the dining room table, legs thrust underneath, a filmy nylon nightgown brushing her knees, her calves dry and scratched. I’m stretched out beneath the table watching her feet rub together like another pair of fussing hands.

Chanukah

David’s car is packed with so many stuffed animals it looks like he’s robbed a zoo. At his ex-wife’s house, he opens the car door, wrestles out a full-size tiger, and drags it across the snow-covered lawn. It takes 20 minutes to fill the den with damp toys. Laughter shrill, smiles too wide, his daughters roll atop the plush mountain of new pets. They hope this year’s performance will convince Dad to stay. Last Chanukah was such a failure.

CP

Tina Barry’s short stories and poems have appeared in Drunken Boat, Lost in Thought, Elimae, and other publications. She enjoys good meals almost as much as great writing.

Tina Barry

Mall Flower

I’ve blown out my shag haircut

and it’s big.

BIG-big. Cool

With the mirrored halter-top

and jeans chopped into shorts.

SHORT-shorts.

I’m psyched for the mall

And its food court, where I strut

the aisles on swizzle

stick legs

past Jahn’s green whipped cream,

past Beefsteak Charlies,

past the crepes at Magic Pan,

past the Nut Shoppe’s chocolate

turtles

To buy cigarettes at Mr. Pipe

where Scott wears an afro

and a star of David,

ties a red bandana

to the loop of white overalls,

asks me to meet him

behind Cinnabon

where I wait, back pressed

against cinderblocks,

face tilted to the sun,

knowing, as I suck smoke

in deep, that I’m a fox.

A  total  fucking   fox.

 

Continuing Ed.

Joan arranges neat rows of pastels

Susan and Sally squeeze whirls

of cobalt and saffron

Eugene steadies a sketchpad on his easel

Ashley, the new model, arrives

Luca, the instructor, says, “Ashley is awesome”

All the models --Madison and Addison

Shaniqua and Samantha

Taylor, Tyler, Chelsea and Chantal--

 are “awesome”

Eugene stares at Ashley

Robert stares at Ashley

Pat, Pam and Peggy stare at Ashley --

reclined, an odalisque on a velvet love seat,

her haircut-- shaved on the sides,

long on top--

is nothing new

The students yawn at studded tongues

tattoos of squirrels, skulls and snakes

a nipple ring is one more piece of jewelry

What Joan and Joyce

Susan and Sally

Robert, Eugene, Pat and Pam

haven’t seen is a model so bare

Ashley, it seems, has no pubic hair

Robert and Randal recall daughters

as children and look away

Pat, the minimalist, draws a “v”

anchors it with a vertical line

Peggy moves her easel

to the back corner of the room

reaches her hand

inside the elastic of her slacks

and rests it--

not in a sexual way

she’s past that--

but to feel the spring of hair

beneath cotton underpants

black, verdant and untamed

Swing

It begins with

the older girls’ voices,

meant to cower

then your cries

tinny   floating

Your hands

small knobs of ivory

untouched by history

the girls a dark helix

above as you

climb the hill

settle on the thread-bare

hammock of the swing’s

seat, chains chilled against

fingers. The girls run

hooting  stumbling

to the street

in love with leaving you

just as your

toe nudges a cloud

and you scream, one

shot of pure elastic pleasure

   Look!

CP

Tina Barry’s poems and short stories have appeared in Elimae, Lost in Thought Magazine, The Orange Room Review, and Exposure, an Anthology of Microfiction, among other online and print publications. When she’s not writing, she’s planning 10-course French dinners that will never be served.