Short stories by Susan Perabo and poems by Jeanne-Marie Osterman and Catherine Barnett

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Katy's mother was a real piece of work.  She lived like a hermit in a crappy little apartment in Newark, listening to talk radio and working crossword puzzles and--from what I could tell--just waiting to keel over dead. . . .  She only spoke when asked a direct question, and her answers were always polite and indifferent and short, like she was being interviewed for a job she didn't really want; she looked right through Katy like a pane of glass. 
--From "Counting the Ways," a short story by Susan Perabo.  It was published in her collection Who I Was Supposed to Be (Simon & Schuster, 1999), pp. 35-51.

He awoke Christmas morning to find a tall, frowning doctor standing over him.  Three of his ribs were cracked, and his nose was broken.  His cheeks ached and his ears tingled.  He lifted his arm and read the plastic band that circled his wrist.  John Doe, it read. 
--From "Reconstruction," a short story by Susan Perabo.  It was published in her collection Who I Was Supposed to Be (Simon & Schuster, 1999), pp. 83-102.

I was twelve the summer I watched four men beat up my father on a softball field at his company picnic.  
--From "Who I Was Supposed to Be," a short story by Susan Perabo.  It was first published in Black Warrior Review, 21.1 (Fall/Winter 1994), and later included in her collection Who I Was Supposed to Be (Simon & Schuster, 1999), pp. 103-117.


I walk to the cafeteria carrying my
      clipboard with Medicaid application and notes

for Washington State Human Services
     I'm mistaken for a social worker 

by a man in a wheelchair whose wife
     is dying down the hall.
--From "Any Fool Can," a poem by Jeanne-Marie Osterman, 45th Parallel, Issue 4.


A doctor suggested I spend four minutes a day asking questions about whatever matters most to me.

Four minutes, that's how long it takes to boil an egg, get from 96th to 42nd on the express train, initiate an irreversible apocalypse. 

     ---

How do I get out of here? is the question my father asks most frequently.  It takes him three of four seconds to say the seven syllables, there are frequent glitches in his speech but it's a perfect mantra.

What next? and Jackie? are his other inquiries.

Jackie what next Jackie what next Jackie--

If you count repetitions, they add up to at least four minutes.

--From Human Hours, a collection of poems by Catherine Barnett (Graywolf Press, 2018).  This segment is from "Accursed Questions, i" (pp. 23-26).  The poem that led me to this book, "Essay on 'An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,'" appeared in The New Yorker on March 19, 2018 (pp. 52-53).  "Essay" is on pages 32-33 of Human Hours.