Luck of the Titanic

by Stacey Lee

death is just a continuation of life on a higher plane with our ancestors.

I pick out the emotions knitting in me like loose threads:

Two people look at the same object but see two different things.

I shake myself free from the sticky trap of her gaze and find my place again.

He has fast hands. He can throw a ball through a speeding train and have it come out on the other side.

“It’s too fine. What if I step on the hem or, I dunno, stink it up?” “You stink the same as everyone else up here. It’s just a dress. You’re supposed to wear it, not let it wear you. That’s called style.”

I try to hold on to some of my righteous indignation, but every part of me has begun to feel gooey,

like butter melting across toast.

Getting clean even when I don’t feel dirty is one of the best parts of first-class living.

Bo’s words hit me just like the pinecone I didn’t see coming.

And though a goldfish has as good a chance of outswimming its bowl as I have of fleeing this ship, I bolt.

With a grin like a slice of melon,

Perhaps so much activity on

the outside frees the inside to relax.

“The grain sheds its husk and comes forth.”

It’s true that I may have hung a big fish on a slender hook.

ignores them, though if it were me, I would’ve speared them with a good eyeball javelin.

“Even a rock has its points.

If you always give, you will always have.

like the two sides of a railroad track; when one got hot, the other got equally hot.

Mr. Stewart’s face is a landscape of changing scenery and shifting planes—the flattening of the hill of his nose, the widening of the crag of his mouth. His gaze shifts to me and becomes thoughtful.

But an almond twisted from the tree before it’s ready will always be bitter.

Then he’s gone, like the last notes of a song that ends too soon.