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On Grief / Walking Through Costco I Feel Like a Woman

June 5, 2022/ Anna Girgenti

On Grief 

When you died, the grooves
in your back turned to rivers

on which I set sail everything I stole from you:
white dress, fresh figs, jars and jars of thick

dark honey–the scent of which reminds me
of your skin as it caught the light in the olive grove,

the light which was rightfully ours–
your tendency to pick at your nails, the gun

from your desk (yes, I know you kept it
in the bottom drawer, unloaded).

Didn’t I tell you I could read palms?
Didn’t I tell you if I could whisper

into the scar on your eyebrow, I’d say
Underneath all that rage is an old wound.

Walking Through Costco I Feel Like a Woman

The kind who glides around tables of baked goods,
her black platform boots swinging over the cement floor
like parallel pendulums, a halo of fluorescent light
shrouding her.
‍‌The kind of woman who is lost without knowing it,
who takes walks in cemeteries,
brushing dirt and snow from headstones,
reading the names and years out loud,
as her father taught her, one by one.
This is the kind of woman who quits her job,
runs away to a small coastal town,
keeps a pocket knife tucked in her sock,
falls asleep drunk on the pier.

What is she doing here
among the abundance, the canned peaches
and pickled beets? This is woman who, like anyone,
must sometimes take inventory.
Who, passing a full-size mirror, calculates
the bewildering mass of her hips.
She wears her jacket three sizes too big on purpose—
she likes the way it hangs off her shoulders,
pulling them down into a heavy shrug,
but not the kind of shrug that says I don’t know,
the kind that says I’m cool
I don’t need a cart I just need to walk
through a warehouse in winter
when the temperature outside is below freezing,

and the workers are beginning what they call
the sweep,
a nightly ritual in which they scan the building,
starting in the back and moving to the entrance,
stopping to say to everyone they find,
we’re closing soon.

When they reach me, I am in the frozen fish section,
staring into the open eye of a tilapia.
I look up at them and they look at me
and then down at the fish and back at me and they say
we’re closing soon ma’am,
and it takes all my strength
not to embrace their drooping bodies
and hold their faces in my hands when I say
I know I know I know.

Anna Girgenti headshot

Anna Girgenti is a midwestern poet and illustrator. She currently lives in Chicago and works with incarcerated writers through PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing program. She was a recipient of the University of Iowa’s 2018 Iowa Chapbook Prize. Her writing appears or is forthcoming in Cider Press Review, Gordon Square Review, Zone 3 Press, and Mid-American Review.

Issue Archive

  • Issue 21: Summer/Fall 2022
  • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
  • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
  • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
  • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
  • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
  • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
  • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
  • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
  • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
  • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
  • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
  • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
  • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
  • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
  • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
  • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
  • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
  • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
  • Issue 2: Winter/Spring 2013
  • Issue 1: Spring 2012

Genre Archive

  • Creative Nonfiction
  • Essays
  • Fiction
  • Flash Prose
  • Lunch Specials
  • Poetry
  • Interviews
  • Translation
  • Visual Art
  • Writing for Young People

Friday Lunch Blog

Friday Lunch! A serving of contemporary essays published every Friday.

Today’s course:

Where Are You From?

August 5, 2022/in Blog / Majella Pinto
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The Old Folks’ Home

July 22, 2022/in Blog / Karen Gaul Schulman
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screen-Shot-2022-07-21-at-5.55.26-PM-e1658444219873.png 1608 1756 Karen Gaul Schulman https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Karen Gaul Schulman2022-07-22 13:21:012022-07-27 10:24:10The Old Folks’ Home

Peace, Love, and a lot of Loud Rock & Roll

June 17, 2022/in A Transfer, Blog / Sunee Lyn Foley
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Midnight Snack

A destination for all your late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

QVC-land

May 6, 2022/in A Transfer, Midnight Snack / D. E. Hardy
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Diana-Hardy_QVC_Feature_Photo.png 533 800 D. E. Hardy https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png D. E. Hardy2022-05-06 23:45:322022-07-18 17:54:56QVC-land

Escape Artists at the End of the World

April 29, 2022/in A Transfer, Midnight Snack / Lisa Levy
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The House in the Middle

April 15, 2022/in A Transfer, Midnight Snack / Megan Vasquez
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/alec-douglas-iuC9fvq63J8-unsplash-scaled-1.jpg 2560 1707 Megan Vasquez https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Megan Vasquez2022-04-15 23:45:322022-04-15 23:45:32The House in the Middle

More coming soon!

Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every Monday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

My Mother’s Hands

August 8, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche / Annie Marhefka
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Defy Gravity

August 1, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche / Megan Peck
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Little Shrimp

July 25, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche / Karen Poppy
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School Lunch

An occasional Wednesday series dishing up today’s best youth writers.

Today’s slice:

I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

May 12, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Brendan Nurczyk
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A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Isabella Dail
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Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Abigail E. Calimaran
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SL-Insta-Abigail-E.-Calimaran.png 1080 1080 Abigail E. Calimaran https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Abigail E. Calimaran2021-04-14 11:22:062021-04-14 11:22:06Seventeen

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Word From the Editor

The variety in this issue speaks not only to the eclectic world we inhabit but to the power of the human spirit. We live in an uncertain world. In the U.S., we’re seeing mass shootings daily. Across the world, we’re still very much in a pandemic, some being trapped in their homes for weeks on end, others struggling to stay alive in hospitals. War continues to wage in Ukraine. Iran and North Korea are working diligently to make nuclear weapons. The list goes on. Still, we have artists who are willing and able to be vulnerable with one another, to share stories and art to help us try and make sense of our world.

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