Talk Show

by Lori Von Colln

And this is the corner where Lisa

Lamore had her alien abduction,

not martians, she said,

but 60 ft. great danes

that spoke English and Portugese

(these were the tongues

of her mother and father) and whisked

her to Pluto where she slept

soundly for the first time in months

on a bed of terry cloth robes

and was taught fetch and play dead,

but also chess strategy and how

to know which household objects,

when ingested, caused vomiting.

She vomited that whole night

after taking a handful of Atavan,

her husband, finding her,

only smacked her across

the side of the face,

she just kept muttering, took me

on a leash, I tell you,

going on Oprah and Donahue

telling all the world--everyone who missed

the larger significance--the forcible exits

hearts make, before fluttering closed.