Friday, October 25,, 2024; Jan Steckel's "The Fire Game"

 

The Fire Game

I didn’t set out to be a rage-a-holic,

but it crept up on me, what with

certain friends and family

turning out to be rabid

abled supremacists and all.

I didn’t start out with burning contempt

for my fellow Americans, for other poets,

for Republicans, for the entire South,

for the unvaxed, the unmasked.

I just smoldered until I burst into flame.

I want to smother it in human kindness,

but every time I start to get there,

another disabled or elderly friend

drops dead, or the ERs fill up,

or somebody gives me shit

for wearing a mask to a party,

and I just want to unhinge my jaw,

yell “Dracaris,” and incinerate

the whole freaking fiesta,

then crawl back in my cave.

© 2024 Jan Steckel

Jan Steckel’s debut fiction collection Ghosts and Oceans came out from Zeitgeist

Press in 2023. Her poetry book The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011) won a

2012 Lambda Literary Award. Her poetry book Like Flesh Covers Bone (Zeitgeist

Press, 2018) won two Rainbow Awards. Her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks

(Gertrude Press, 2009) and poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist

Press, 2006) also won awards. Her creative prose and poetry have appeared in

Scholastic Magazine, Yale Medicine, Bellevue Literary Review, Canary, Assaracus and elsewhere.

She lives in Oakland, California.

Women's History Month: Jan Steckel's "Tortilla Jesus"

Tortilla Jesus*

I see Jesus in a Cheeto,
a pierogi, a frying pan, an ashtray,
shower mold, a grease stain,
a paper towel like the Shroud of Turin.

I see the Virgin Mary
in agate, marble, glass and sheet metal,
in a rotting grape, a redwood burl,
a grilled cheese sandwich, a lava lamp.

I see Buddha in a beehive,
Mother Teresa in a cinnamon bun.
Satan in a potato chip.
I see love in your eyes.


*After reading Look! It’s Jesus: Amazing Holy Visions in Everyday Life, (Chronicle Books, 2010) by Harry and Sandra Choron


Jan Steckel is a former pediatrician who stopped practicing medicine because of chronic pain. Her latest poetry book is Like Flesh Covers Bone (Zeitgeist Press, December 2018). Her poetry book The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011) won a 2012 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Nonfiction. Her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks (Gertrude Press, 2009) and poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006) also won awards. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Scholastic Magazine, Bellevue Literary Review, New Verse News, November 3 Club, Assaracus and elsewhere. Her work was nominated three times each for the Pushcart and Sundress Best of the Net anthologies, won the Goodreads Poetry Contest three times, and won various other awards. She lives in Oakland, California.