The Sunday Poet: Heather Sullivan

 

Heather Sullivan

 

Heather Sullivan’s work has appeared in numerous print and online journals, most recently Chiron Review, Paper and Ink Literary Zine and Trailer Park Quarterly. Her debut collection, Waiting for an Answer (Nixes Mate Books 2017), is available both through the publisher and Amazon. She is also the co-editor at Live Nude Poems. She and novelist Rusty Barnes live with their family in Revere, MA.

Piggy Bank

Every happy thought I have ever had

is stored away in a square shaped

piggy bank on my dresser. I dole them

out to pay the toll keeper of existence

like peeled off pesos in that trip south

of the border for low priced pain meds

for my slipped discs that we never took.

When I’m out, I’ll be holding up the line

behind me just like when I’d overshoot

the bucket with my change, digging

through the ashtray looking for quarters,

shoving my hand down the side of the

console for the profligate dimes. You

remember that old joke your uncle would

rib any newlywed with, every time you

have sex the first year of your marriage

you put a marble in a jar on the bedside

table, then pull a marble out every time

you have sex thereafter – you’ll never

empty the jar. My storehouse is almost

empty, and Joseph has left his post.