by Cat Dixon

I.

This is the quiet section so we whisper as we sort—
my pile has 50 poems. Yours, 30. With a red pen,

you slash through entire stanzas, draw arrows—
move this here, move that there. You say the last line

must bait the hook for the next. Each piece must
be tethered by the invisible push and pull

of the current. This table, floating in the corner,
with a view of the parking lot, now spins,

caught in a whirlpool. I get seasick easily,
but you, chewing on a pen cap, shuffling

manila folders, do not seem to mind the spray
of the water, the carousel of silver sharks,

the dented eel that slithers in my lap,
the shaky hand I use to take notes.


II.

It seemed like a good idea all those years ago,
to salvage our lost letters, poems, and emails

to construct a lifeboat. All that wasted
emotion and time put to use—to make

something to pass the hours, something
to busy our minds, something

so lopsided and ugly that it would
never carry its passengers to shore.

The anchor latched to my broken ankle
guarantees I’ll be pulled under

and you, forever captain, former martyr,
the hero hidden in every book,

are destined for the lighthouse.
Just a little farther.


III.

On my laptop, I create a Google drive—
organization will be so much easier.

We cut and paste and insert a new page break,
but the words smear the screen, my backspace

button gets stuck with seaweed. You
insist we work on paper. Forget

the computer, the cloud that holds
the secret of what happened to the sailor

who didn’t drown, didn’t abandon
ship, didn’t kiss my mouth and then spit

seashells in my face. His siren call
keeps the rain away, plugs the holes,

and I believe I can hold my breath
for as long as it takes.

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Cat Dixon works full-time at a church and teaches creative writing as an adjunct at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. Cat is the author of Eva and Too Heavy to Carry (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2016, 2014) and The Book of Levinson and Our End Has Brought the Spring (Finishing Line Press, 2017, 2015), as well as the chapbook, Table for Two (Poet's Haven, 2019). Her poetry and reviews have appeared in numerous journals including Sugar House Review, Midwest Quarterly Review, Coe Review, Eclectica, and Mid-American Review.

by Cat Dixon

The vent whistles and blows the papers from the desk to the floor—all those checks that need to be signed, all those welcome letters to be mailed, the return address label page missing an entire row. The carpet—littered with eraser dandruff, bent paper clips and crumbs from my Poptart— needs to be vacuumed. The filing cabinet with its open mouth calls, file, file, organize this shit. Instead, I slip the Leonard Cohen CD into the computer. “First We Take Manhattan” begins and I dust and vacuum and wipe. The window sill is filled with dead flies and grit. The lever on the office chair is caked in dust. The blessing bags for the homeless are piled underneath the table—all their strings knotted together. When the doorbell rings, and the man asks for help, I hand him four bags instead of one—too lazy to untwine them. He says, “I don’t need all this,” and I think, none of us do. 

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Cat Dixon is the author of Eva and Too Heavy to Carry (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2016; 2014) and a chapbook, The Book of Levinson (Finishing Line Press, 2017). She teaches creative writing at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. She has poems (co-written with Trent Walters) in They Said: A Multi-Genre Anthology of Contemporary Collaborative Writing (Black Lawrence Press, 2018).