On meeting an alcoholic By B. Lynne Zika

The way the sun turns in Salinas,

women age quickly. They wake up

one morning and are old, the skin

drawn against their cheekbones,

their mouths hollow with defeat.

They preserve their youth

in strong woolen blankets.

Tourists come to buy their lies.

I imagine your invitation.

My disease floats

like sweet night air,

comes to rest. You graze

a shoulder. Desert air

seeps through windows,

nestles on my skin.

There are other things to fear:

the shock of morning,

the old man, who nods

as I walk by.

B. Lynne Zika’s prose, photography, and verse appear regularly in online and print journals. 2024 publications include Medusa’s Kitchen, Lyrical Somerville, and The Crossroads.  2023 publica-tions include Gargoyle Magazine, The Rye Whiskey Review, Medusa’s Kitchen, Svartedaudenzine, The Crossroads, and Disturb the Universe.  2022 publications include Delta Poetry Review, Backchannels, Poesy and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. She is the author of The Strange Case of Eddy Whitfield, The Longing, and Letters to Sappho: Putting Out the Fire. In addition to editing poetry and nonfiction, she worked as a closed-captioning editor for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. Awards include: Pacificus Foundation Literary Award in short fiction, Little Sister Award and Moon Prize in poetry, and Viewbug Top Creator and Hero Awards in photography.