Plastics
My mother throws
a Tupperware party.
Only two women come,
eating their body weight
in deviled eggs, listening
to a consultant pitch them
canister sets, colanders,
lemonade pitchers.
The fish aren’t biting.
The pond barely
eddies. My sister and I
pool our birthday money
and ask to buy a set
of nesting bowls.
We will free them
like Matryoshka dolls,
load their cavities
with marbles,
coins, barrettes, and stones.
Fill up our containers.
*
Christy Prahl is an Illinois Arts Council grant recipient and the author of the poetry collections We Are Reckless (Cornerstone Press, 2023), With Her Hair on Fire (Roadside Press, 2025), and Catalog of Labors (Unsolicited Press, fall 2026). A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, her work has been featured in Poetry Daily as well as many national and international journals, including the Asheville Poetry Review, CALYX, Rattle, Louisville Review, Penn Review, Sugar House Review, Salt Hill Journal, and others. She was a featured poet on the Hive Poetry Collective podcast in April 2025, and two of her poems have been set to music by post-punk musicians. She splits her time between a small workers’ cottage in Chicago and refurbished Quonset hut in southwest Michigan. More at https://christyprahl.wixsite.com/christy-prahl.