Tova Feldmanstern: 3 poems
tenured
in the loneliest place i’ve ever been
i met the loneliest man i’ve ever met
he sat alone at the communal table
an animate venus fly trap
i kept a wide berth
we only spoke once or twice
i couldn’t bear the reverberations
his seventy odd years an affront
to my artless and empty youth
like backwards magnets
i still wonder: what is required
to become a human being?
mario kart ™
i always press
much too hard on
the controller trying to make my
little car go not
remembering it’s
just a game the
gold coins elude
me with their
sudden
appearances and
disappearances
i’m never ready i
wish i were better
at planning ahead
it seems i haven’t
gotten the hang of
caring an
appropriate
amount
the questions
my friends are having babies and i
would like to follow suit but it
appears we’re nearing the end and
i’m not sure i could handle a kid’s
questions about meaning or purpose
or what’s for breakfast when cold
cereal is our nation’s feeble
contribution to the potluck for
which we wrote invitations but
refuse to play host, so that
everyone at this party is either
crying or laughing maniacally or
desperately tearing at the plastic bag
inside the cardboard box labeled
cheer or luck or tricks or life
craving sugar and its quick results
just to avoid fainting from exhaustion
which reminds me that i recently
quit my social work job because
there is only so long we can survive
off of others’ pain before it starts to
eat us alive and this is another reason
i probably shouldn’t start having
children, i’m not sure exactly how
they‘ll be nourished
Tova Feldmanstern lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a licensed clinical social worker and is currently pursuing a degree in music. Her writing has appeared in Panoplyzine, Gravitas and Aurora.