HOLDEN AND JANE

by

Cindy Rosmus

If you’d only called her

In Chapter 4

none of it would’ve happened.

Your whoremaster roommate

Wouldn’t have kicked your ass.

That geeky guy down the hall

Wouldn’t have picked his pimples

On your pillow.

That baby-voiced hooker

Wouldn’t have sicced her pimp on you.

You wouldn’t have rubbed out all the “Fuck you’s” you saw.

(You could never rub out all the “Fuck you’s” you see.)

Your closeted teach wouldn’t have fondled you.

You wouldn’t have lost it

On the merry-go-round,

Watching your sis go round, and round.

You wouldn’t still be in the looney bin.

Instead, you’d be admiring

All Jane’s kings on the back row

Of the chessboard.

As she stands behind you, stroking your neck

Like a little boy

Who would’ve fallen off the cliff

Into the rye,

If you hadn’t gotten there first.

Cindy originally hails from the Ironbound section of Newark, NJ, once voted the “unfriendliest city on the planet.” She talks like Anybodys from West Side Story and everybody from Saturday Night Fever. Her noir/horror/bizarro stories have been published in the coolest places, such as Shotgun Honey; Megazine; Dark Dossier; The Rye Whiskey Review, Under the Bleachers, and Rock and a Hard Place. She is the editor/art director of Yellow Mama. She’s published seven collections of short stories. Cindy is a Gemini, a Christian, and an animal rights advocate.