Thought Monster
By Marianne Kunkel
Garlicky smoke plumes from our oven the afternoon I come home to grab a meringue pie and leave again, this time to a Christmas party. I dart upstairs to warn you your baking potatoes, hastily wrapped in foil and leaking oil, might burn the house down. But you’re deep in a Zoom call— so many coworkers your monitor resembles graph paper— and your locked jaw, stiff back, signal interruptions aren’t welcome. I miss the one-thoughtness of childhood: I wanted to drink warm rain so I did, eyes shut. Petted an alley cat. Made the new kid in suspenders my BFF. Grown, I tell myself your potatoes won’t start a grease fire, not to ruin your late lunch with worry. Driving off, I check my rear-view mirror for flames crowning our house; could there be a worse thought? The small relief you’d be to blame, not me. Or, in bed that night, shame I didn’t rewrap your potatoes. Slip you a note.
Marianne Kunkel is the author of Hillary, Made Up (Stephen F. Austin State UP) and The Laughing Game (Finishing Line Press), two anthologies, and many poems, including one in Best American Poetry 2025. She is Associate Professor of English at Johnson County Community College and Co-editor of Kansas City Review. She holds an MFA in poetry from University of Florida and Ph.D. in English from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she was Prairie Schooner managing editor.
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