In the corner chair of the cashmere office,
I tuck my legs under my body and repeat
something about the 844 picnickers who died
when their lake cruiser overturned in twenty
feet of water on the Chicago River. This therapist
of mine, she says that’s a tragedy for another
time and asks if I’ve been meditating and
writing in my journal nightly. I say yes, and
I’ll even share an excerpt. I stand on the chair,
which sags under my weight, and read something
about a fitness instructor who was killed
by a falling bookshelf, and this therapist
doesn’t laugh like she’s supposed to,
doesn’t smile, even, just wraps her cardigan
around her body and says it’s about time
for me to talk about my mother. I say only
if satire is allowed. Surprise, surprise: it’s not.
She asks me if that girl who stopped responding
to my calls ever answered, and I say no,
and I’ll probably grow old and haggard
by myself, and one day I’ll splat face-first
onto the linoleum in my one-bedroom, rent-
controlled apartment and someone will realize
I have died only after the hallway begins to reek
of decomposing flesh. She asks me if that’s
a possibility I often worry about. I say no,
I only ever worry about two things:
peanut butter congealing mid-esophagus
and my appendix bursting when I sneeze.
And claymation. I nightmare in claymation.
E.C. Gannon's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Assignment Magazine, The Meadow, Olit, and elsewhere. A New England native, she holds a degree in creative writing and political science from Florida State University.