writing from
Scars Publications

Audio/Video chapbooks cc&d magazine Down in the Dirt magazine books

 

Order this writing in the collection book
Life on the Edge

this huge volume is available for only $2395
Life on the Edge

This appears in a pre-2010 issue
of cc&d magazine.
Saddle-stitched issues are no longer
printed, but you can requesting it
“re-released” through amazon sale
as a 6" x 9" ISBN# book!
Email us for re-release to order.

cc&d v175

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.



Scars Publications


Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.




Problems with this page? Then deal with it...