Jennifer Lagier

Kvetch He is used to being a fixer, doesn’t understand when I bitch, share dirty secrets, spew my frustration. It doesn’t mean I am a damsel in distress, silently imploring his intervention. I’m not a broken machine crying out for repair, a fallen flower needing superman’s rescue. My screwed up life is not a puzzle requiring solution, my kvetching just context to assist a friend’s comprehension. Relentless My mother is like an unstoppable terrier, sinks her teeth into whatever, whoever sticks in her craw, won't let go. Wants things done promptly, correctly, exactly her way. Instructs the receptionist how to schedule appointments. Lectures her accountant on completing taxes. Lines out family, repair men, doctors, lawyers. “Nobody pays attention to details, follows through, gives a shit about standards," she fumes, ripping into offenders. Two a.m. Can’t find a position to escape into sleep. There's emptiness where you used to be, a black hole in my night. The usual antidotes aren’t working: wine, pills, mindless t.v. Nothing erases what aches. This time you've broken skin, drawn blood, taken me down. Tomorrow I will return to familiar remedies: pump iron, powerwalk steep hills, ignore new scars, remember the lesson I've learned. Jennifer Lagier’s eight books are: Coyote Dream Cantos, Where We Grew Up, Second-Class Citizen, The Mangia Syndrome, Fishing for Portents, Agent Provocateur, Hookup With Chinaski and Penetrating the Mist. She taught with California Poets in the Schools and is now a retired college librarian/instructor, member of the Italian American Writers Association, Pacific Northwest Writers Association, Rockford Writers Guild and helps coordinate monthly Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Sunday readings. Visit her website at: http://jlagier.net