Issue 1 - Weekly Showcase 4
Wherein we highlight pieces you might have missed!
It’s time for another weekly showcase of our contributors’ work from Frazzled Lit, Issue 1. This week, with the US election just around the corner, we’ve chosen pieces by American authors.
In particular, we draw your attention to the poem ‘The Statue of Liberty bows her great head, September 2020 (A Reminder)’ by Cassie Smith-Christmas.
Three Poems by Cassie Smith-Christmas
St. Ita’s advice to her fosterling, Brendan the Navigator / Only in the US / The Statue of Liberty bows her great head, September 2020 (A Reminder)
Boomerang Children
I lick my mother’s cremains off the sunbaked highway, meticulously, my muddy tongue flickering across the smooth double yellow line, sucking cremains from soggy cigarette butts, kissing kaleidoscopic clumps of muck. Sweaty paramedics scoop me toward their ambulance with the majesty of rainbow sherbet ice-cream into a waffle cone.
What Was Never Whole
I never spent much time with my parents. They worked various shifts. I was one of those so-called latchkey kids. And I was always off somewhere that kept me out of that hot Hoboken railroad apartment. I loved the aroma of coffee forever floating in the air since my home was across the street from Maxwell's Coffee House factory.
maybe this is what it means to be alive
My closest friend longed to be special, even if it was only to one person. I think she wanted that person to be me. She asked me yesterday that if she jumped, would I too. I thought she was talking about a trampoline; I said sure.
Apparently, that was not what she had meant. She meant: if I wanted to die, would you die—no, choose to die—with me?