Saga

She ate soft-boiled egg from a cup, small end up,
as did her paternal grandmother. A moat of crocodiles
protected her virginity. Tampax was forbidden 
as was listening to a garage band in a garage, 
but Mother bought her Tiger-Lily lipstick. Maybe
she was a Schrödinger’s cat, a thought experiment.
They would try this and that—and if mistakes
were made, well, they had two more daughters
to bank on. So, one night she sat in the kitchen
translating Baudelaire while the sister went out
with a date. After the movie, they called for a lift
from the train. It had snowed; it was late.
No one would be surprised if the station wagon
skidded into the lake at the bottom of the hill.

DIANE K. MARTIN

Diane K. Martin lives in western Sonoma County, California. Her poems have recently appeared in American Poetry Review, Diode, Field, Laurel Review, Plume, RHINO, River Styx, and many other journals. Diane’s first collection, Conjugated Visits, was published by Dream Horse Press in 2010. Her second, Hue & Cry, was published by MadHat Press in 2020.