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Two Uses for Alka-Seltzer Bottles
Peter Martin
Alka-Seltzer used to come in
long thick glass bottles
like test tubes with flat bottoms.
Tablets the size of fat quarters
went plop, plop, fizz, fizz
oh what a relief it is
in glasses of water
downed quickly for sour stomach
or hangovers. Drinking undissolved
chunks was common.
One summer in Mishicot
I watched my cousin Billy
use an empty Alka-Seltzer bottle
on his girlfriend who giggled
that it was cold.
We were fifteen and playing
improvisational games.
The summer before I started college
I worked at Monarch Range Co.
where I saw an Alka-Seltzer bottle
used for a different purpose.
My foreman had taken me
to the first aid station
to treat a sheet metal cut
on my wrist.
As he rummaged through
a medicine cabinet, he pulled out
an Alka-Seltzer bottle
to show me souvenirs
collected at the plant
and kept in formaldehyde.
I held the bottle to the light
and stared at severed fingers,
fingertips and a single thumb.
There was grime under
the fingernails, and black grease
stained the shriveled skin.
Shears, brakes and presses
had cut the pieces clean,
like meat ends in a butcher’s deli.
The formaldehyde swirled
when I shook the bottle
and the fingers moved
as if waving.
I went carefully back to work,
thinking about how successful I would be
at my studies in the fall.