Two poems by Sally Molini

Psychic at the Fundraiser

Ed, one of the zoo’s biggest donors, raises his hand
and Joan picks him for her next reading. Eyes closed
and holding his keys, she says I see the color green,
lots of growth ahead for you. One of the zookeepers
at my table cuts into her steak murmuring Joan should
line up the animals and read for them.  I think about
the exhibits we saw today, among them Nava’s Wren,
its flight cage the size of a hatbox, and the polar bear’s
hard-to-watch, compulsive same-pattern swim. Another
volunteer hands Joan a bracelet—too easy, predicting
flora-and-fauna’s future. The bits of nature we humans
like best will be the last to go, locked in place and safe
for now as exhibit, pet, worker, food, ornamental shrub,
or vacation background vibe.

Visitor’s Gargle

I can hear my cousin swish
from the kitchen, his mouthwash
with a past morphing since 1879
from surgical antiseptic
to floor cleaner, aftershave, cure
for colds, dandruff and the clap,
wrapped for a hundred years
in brown corrugated cardboard.
Daily potion for his gargoyle
call, bubbles rise from the uvula’s
little-grape dangle—who knows
what might fall in during Larry’s
wide-open rinse-and-spit
in the half-bath at the rear
of the house: body arched, head
back, eyes bugged as if scared of
the ceiling’s stringy cobwebs.

Sally Molini’s work has appeared in American Letters & Commentary, Beloit Poetry Journal, Southern Poetry Review, Southampton Review, Denver Quarterly, among others. She co-edits Cerise Press and lives in Nebraska.

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