Duck Hunt

by Jessica Myers

The year we got Mario Brothers
was also the year Jen
learned how to shoot things.
Duck Hunt, with its artificial ducks
and dog with the computerized giggle,
was the reason
my sister was convinced
she could go hunting with Dad.
She asked him and said I got good aim.
He laughed but took her anyway.

When they got home he said
She hit the ground
at the first shot
then wanted to go home.
He laughed between wheezes.
She laughed too, as she paled.
She face was white like Star Gazer lilies,
with their red stripes down the center
of each petal, cheerful mistakes that smile
in their ashen canvas.

A few weeks later,
he brought home
what looked to be a duck,
she cried.

It took him two hours
to pluck it, clean it, and roast it
in the scarred black pan he made
pot roast in all through winter.
He ate a few bites, wrapped it up,
and it sat in the back of the fridge
growing mold for weeks.


Jessica Myers is editor-in-chief of No Teeth: a Digital Poetry Journal

That Person

by Jessica Myers

I wouldn’t call that living, my father said,
his hands open, as if it were obvious
to my mother, who’d asked,
How can that person live that way?
She asks this because two nights before
that prostitute, red with blood,
knocked on our front door, Can I use the phone?

My parents made her stand outside, alone
while they dialed 911 and told the cops to hurry.
Blood pooled on the edges of our porch,
dripped down the side, syrup in a movie.

Eventually, the cops took her away.
My mother asks,
when she looked across the street.
Saw the prostitute’s face sewn in patches,
sitting on the pimp’s porch, proud,
a drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other,
her arms draped with his as if it was meant to be.


Jessica Myers is editor-in-chief of No Teeth: a Digital Poetry Journal.