by Julie Marie Wade

My first asylum. Every other night after
dinner: a cap full of dishwashing soap, a hot
stream of water. The inflatable pillow that
looked like a shell, each letter in IVORY
fading. I stretched long and let the
bubbles beard over my chin, closed my eyes
tight and imagined sailing. Then, before my
mother came in, before her rough hands and
her beauty supply discount-buy tub of Nexxus
shampoo, I told myself at least a dozen times:
“You are Marilyn Munster, Marilyn Munster.
No one will ever believe it, but you are the
beautiful one.”

 

 

A three-time Pushcart-Prize nominee, Julie Marie Wade has received the Chicago Literary Award in Poetry, the Gulf Coast Nonfiction Prize, the Oscar Wilde Poetry Prize, and the Literal Latte Nonfiction Award. She completed a Master of Arts in English at Western Washington University in 2003 and a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry at the University of Pittsburgh in 2006. She lives with Angie and their two cats in rural Ohio, where she teaches humanities at a college preparatory boarding school.

 

artwork by Jenny Ostraff. Hoping. Intaglio print. 2007.