New Poetry by Peter Mladinic

Green Turtles

Resentment is a tuna fish sandwich.

A peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat.

The garden-fraught-with-discontent-by-

the-river’s flowers let go its fistful of dirt

over the coffin lid. Goodbye, Matilda.

My grandmother, an entity 

in my heart in my head. My uncle Will said

She’s in heaven. I said, smugly,

if that’s what you want to believe. I believe

in river flowers, peanut butter, tuna fish.

Robert Q, Frank said, you need to learn

how to talk people, to Bill Frappier, Dwight

David Bair and Christine Walsh. And to

Alan Parker, Amy Swerdlick and Robin

Grabrowski.  Tell them about the snapper’s

jagged edged shell, different from orange

shelled turtles and smaller, green shelled

turtles swimming in clear water in a round

plastic dish. They don’t want to hear about

a fist full of dirt sprinkled on a coffin lid.

Okay, dark Frank.  I’ll keep my Matilda

in the garden by the river in my heart. 

I taste the peanut butter and jelly and can

almost feel her fingers caress the snapper’s

jagged edged shell. Be careful it doesn’t

bite you, I say. I love when

the doctor’s got that big needle, Amy

Swerdlick, in his hand and says, This is

going to hurt, and it does. That’s my 

miracle, Frank. I’m talking to my people.

Robert Q, all Bill Frappier and Christine

Walsh want is your money, and a weekend

in Vegas, to watch a little ball spin round

a roulette wheel. They’ve got their own

grandmothers they said goodbye to, 

their own rivers, their own green turtles 

they got from pet shops that die when you

get them home. You look at them and 

they die, those kinds of turtles. They

go the way of all living creatures, Uncle 

Will, Alan Parker, you and I. Bill Frappier,

up Newton, Mass., has his own Matilda, 

his own fistful of dirt flung on the coffin

in the hole in the ground. Like you he smells

the river flowers’ fragrance, like you 

someday, too weak to make a fist.

You should go to Disneyworld, or maybe

in Wichita Falls one night go to a rave.

Donna can’t. Dead of a brain tumor at 52

In 2007.  She never hit you up for money.

Donna Curd kindled my life a short while,

dark Frank. Petite, natural blonde, 

always she had a head cold.

Pretty face, a voice quick to laugh, her hair

wore the river flowers, her fingers caressed

the jagged shell, the snapper’s eyes, she

looked into.  Donna, RIP. Goodbye, good

poems she wrote in Fayetteville, dark

Frank, I’m talking to my people.  Goodbye, 

Matilda, goodbye. Donna Curd, RIP.

- © Peter Mladinic 2022

Peter Mladinic’s fourth book of poems, Knives on a Table is available from Better Than Starbucks Publications. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, USA.