Issue 45.2

In the Event of Some Undoing: One Month of Survival Planning (List)

by Stacey Johnson

  1. If octopus attack, pull away. Peel the suckers and remember:  It's the beak and not the hold that takes you under. Underwater sight goes south and will vanish in a minute.
  2. If reindeer, stand your ground, let these tundra cows bow; take a knee.
  3. If killer bees, avoid the water; they will lay in wait to slaughter.
  4. So now run, give Johnny Walker to the leeches.
  5. He will call this a mindset, but we knew it is a season, called Survive.
  6. It came and went beneath our reasons and his moods like Santa Ana Winds.
  7. A stillness in the living room meant earthquake weather. Next:
    1. The hallway closets open like a coming scream
    2. counting the ammo and bluing the barrels
    3. he rifles us through plastic bins
    4. Look! and we did, and for the empty bottles, gauging the weather
    5. and then whispered, of the last coming first.
  8. Call it. Now respond. Yes, before we heard: no escape.
  9. Matches? We were on our way.
  10. Fire? Yes.
  11. Propane? Soon.
  12. Quick-clot? Coming.
  13. Time check? End of days.
  14. Insect repellent? Doesn't work.
  15. He's yelling now, Wool socks, wrapped in plastic! Parachute cord! Reflective blanket!
  16. Sing, return me to heat.
  17. If I fall, say you'll reach me in the cold.
  18. In the cold, may your heat be enough to swallow the chill.
  19. If I wander, let me not—
  20. Check the bins: beans, rice, spice.
  21. I will not go, hungry. I shall not—
  22. Move! he shouts, Now!
  23. We carry it all out: the oil, AWOL candles.
  24. Number them.
  25. Twenty boxes, ten hours.
  26. How much you want to bet?
  27. A hundred to what?
  28. How many nights does twenty-thousand burn?
  29. If leeches invade the next breath, gargle with diluted liquor and relax.
  30. Same if buried alive.
  31. Hold and hope the rain holds out.

 

About the Author

Stacey C. Johnson writes and teaches in San Diego County. She is a graduate of the MFA program at San Diego State University and creator of The Unknowing Project. Her work appears in Oyster River Pages, Pacific Review, and Fiction International, as well as various other publications. Her poetry chapbook Flight Songs is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press (February 2024). You can find her at staceycjohnson.com.