Poetry by Donna Dallas

A bullet was best

We thought she was off 
since that time the shower ran and ran and we came to find her
sitting propped up            doll-like
              a burnt down cig
              smoldering on the edge of the sink
she shit in the shower
she was coherent then                             somewhat
later that year
               her legs gave
they were well covered                       as her track marks were
we didn’t notice her ankles swollen like tree trunks
               purpled to almost black
a vein burst into a firework of mini blood clots
               causing a stroke
in December she went missing
we found her                         sprawled out
                on a door step
she was catatonic
wheelchair pushed to the curb next to a garbage can
someone placed a bag of garbage on the seat of it
we wheeled her
               oozing
               drooling
               leaning
bag of a body home
we were happy with her
her wheelchair              her stamps that we used to pay for milk and cereal
                she couldn’t keep track of them anyhow
                and we were always so hungry
as long as she made it home                 we were ok
June came
her veins so weak and polluted        she asked us 
to search the back of her neck
we stared in sickened silence
yet she always found a new
                vein
                hidden
in the dry crevices of her once 
                lovely
                curvy
                bouncy 
body
the following December
she went missing again
we searched frantically
it started to snow
                 endless velvety flakes enormous and wondrous
                 walking in them felt magical and surreal
the snow persisted
                 with heavy drifts 
the teenager in the apartment next door found her wheelchair
near the steps that led to the building rooftop
                 how in God’s name did she ever manage to get up there
the effort she put into this
we still talk about it              decades later
think always the same                        a bullet was best
there was a loaded gun in the draw from some crazed boyfriend 
who felt
a single mother with four kids should have some kind of protection
we never went near it
why she threw herself off the roof
to plummet five stories
and lay for 38 hours blanketed under a glorious winter wonderland
when the bullet would have been so much easier

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Prophet
​
Perhaps it’s the very, very old man 
packing your grocery bags in North Shore Farms
the hearing aid
the elephant wrinkled skin
leathery 
old
how he glowed when you said
God bless
and how much of your father he reminded you of
perhaps he was your father
and came back to pack your groceries 
and remind you
that you still need help
and every age is a question
with the answers nested deep
within us

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Donna studied Creative Writing and Philosophy at NYU.  She meandered about before she became a successful business woman, married and mothered 2 beautiful children.  Donna is passionate and deeply inspired by the works of Sharon Olds, Sylvia Plath, Allan Ginsberg, Robert Creeley, Jayne Anne Phillips, Mary Karr, Denis Johnson to name a few. In their raw honesty and bare bones she has found her own niche and has been inspired over and over again to continue to seek out her voice.  Her life is a paradox of cryptic and dark melded into alive and bold. She has written down events from scribbles to journals. Over the years she has documented lives growing up poor, witnessing drugs, prostitution, overdoses and death. She has bundled stories of lives that fell apart in front of her or with her. She’s been compelled since her youth to open it up onto paper, with pen. Donna has been published Mud Fish, Nocturnal Lyric, The Café Review, The New York Quarterly and was lucky enough to study under William Packard back in the day.  She took a slight hiatus and can most recently found in 34th Parallel.

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