Poem
Schrodinger’s 8 Ball
A poem about divorce, Detroit-style pizza, and life after 50
There’s a new pizza place on my block.
It replaced the old pizza place.
The vibe is Red.
The art is fantastic, the kind I would buy because I can’t make it myself.
My boyfriend is out of town, and I’m not feeling well.
My eyes can’t read my own handwriting.
The lights remind me of Pizza Hut, but in a good way,
like old Coke glasses, like plush booths, like kids who liked
going out to eat with their parents.
I’m comfortable with the gender fluidity
behind the register, but all the men in here
have mustaches like my stepdad did–they’re in again.
It weirds me out. I’m drinking wine from a can.
My coat is neither in nor clean.
I keep trying to replace it, but I’ve grown accustomed
to the ways it does not serve me.
There’s a Magic 8 Ball on the counter.
This is both ironic and not ironic depending
on who is sitting at the counter.
I’ve taken half a gummy. There are a lot of options for pain
management these days.
Every day I find it easier and harder to be myself.
I ask the 8 Ball if I will quit my job this year.
“Can’t Say Now.”
I ask it about my enemy.
The answer is “YES.”
I ask what will bring happiness:
“Can’t Say Now.”
Will I like the Pizza?
“Prospect Good.” It’s Detroit-style–also very in,
suddenly. Should I give up trying to achieve all I dreamed of?
“Can’t Say Now.”
I realize how often you have to compromise in
Pizza. It’s almost never just what you want on top.
Will I get what I want?
“NO.”
Trick question, 8 Ball. I was not specific.
Will I die?
“Unlikely.”
This answer fits certain new age philosophies I’m trying on for size–
waking up into other dimensions that TikTokers speak of soothingly.
I can drop off to sleep, reinventing something
about my true nature. Cycle on repeat, like a washing machine.
The washing machine I use now is the same one my boyfriend’s ex-wife used until she became a lesbian and moved out. I live in her house now.
Will I ever get out?
“Answer unclear. Ask Later.”
Oh, I will, 8 Ball.
Now the music is mambo.
The families here are nice. They have small children.
That means we don’t have much in common except
everything. Will Israel stop killing the people of Gaza?
“Very Likely.”
Will Hamas stop killing Israelis?
“Prospect Good.”
8 Ball is really selling it, The Future.
Will we solve climate change?
“Can’t say now.”
I start to wonder if I’m monopolizing the 8 Ball.
Do others want it, either ironically or not?
The soundtrack, meanwhile, contains multitudes.
I keep falling in and out of love with you.
The baby, the toddler, the millennials with no children talking,
the young millennial behind the counter with the elder millennial, these are all things I don’t need reading glasses to see.
Lately I’ve been thinking about rewinding or unspooling,
crawling back into the womb of my failed marriage,
that safe and dark space.
Since you left me babe, it’s been a long way down.
If I knew I’d be the oldest person at this pizza place on a Monday night listening to “Happy Idiot,”
would I, or should I, have stayed married?
“No.”
Well at least there’s that.
Now I’m wondering what my friend Gary would say about the Magic 8 Ball.
I’m pretty sure he’d start to speak for it,
imagining how it would like to mess with folks,
how it might have its own agenda.
I don’t know, I mean, I both believe and don’t believe
in the 8 Ball’s goodwill. As long as I believe it both wants and does not want
the best for me, it’s probably better to live as if both things are true. Another baby comes in with its parents.
Am I the oldest person in the world?
“Yes.”
Will I ever get out of here?
“Unlikely.”
I’ll be leading a poetry workshop as part of the Writing to Be Read writer’s retreat at the Omega Center in Rhinebeck, NY, October 25–27. Join us! Click the link for details. https://www.eomega.org/workshops/writing-be-read
