Research
All those billion-dollar biotech firms in Massachusetts yearning to beat one another in the race to roll out wundor in liquid gel form hope to do so before the end of this fiscal year. Otherwise, their shareholders might never forgive them. Scientists have performed countless blind clinical trials along with blood sacrifices, mostly of small animals. Yet marketing teams still squabble about what color pill will appeal most to healthcare consumers once books close on the rabbit and dragon time begins again. Although I can’t recall the hue of wonder—not having seen it for quite a while, what with all the air pollution—I know my fingertips grazed it once, four decades ago. At an outdoor flea market, I blindly counted quarters jangling in my pocket: more than enough for an armload of comic books already read and reread by strangers grown jaded about capes, masks, and mutants, but for me as fresh as a tomorrow when I might be able to fly.
Jealousy
Like urushiol, invisible oil released from poison ivy, it’s dangerous because it can’t be seen. It’s definitely not green. You can pick it up anywhere. It can be contracted weeding through song names inked in red, every “i” topped with a heart, on mix tapes some strangers made for your beloved. (The severity of reaction will depend on whether the tapes are chock-full of classic rock ballads reappearing in the library the two of you now loop when snuggling under covers.) I once had a nasty case in my eyes. Don’t even know how I got it—just started to believe I spied my girlfriend around town when she said she’d be at home. Before I got better, my lids blazed like twin bonfires, swelling so much I could hardly see. I looked like somebody else, my girlfriend said—a stranger she could never love. I couldn’t even examine myself in a mirror to find out if she was right. I hear if you get it inside your throat it can kill you. At least I know this much from a buddy who had it in his gorge after asking about his fiancé’s former flames: you will have trouble breathing, and the sounds you make when speaking love won’t make any sense.
Noel Sloboda has published two books of poetry as well as seven chapbooks, most recently Creature Features (Mainstreet Rag, 2022). Currently, he is an Associate Professor at Penn State York, where he coordinates the English program.