Maureen Seaton    Miami     (Denise Duhamel)
Sweet World

            I never had a nemesis before. I kinda like it.
                                                           ~Felicity Smoak, The Flash


Wonder what I’d be today if I was still married to my Wall Street husband
besides married to a Wall Street husband and puking gin in a silk sheath 

at Delmonico’s. I might be a blond size 4. I might be a secret Democrat
or a weekend lesbian. This morning five planes flew over the yard in a V 

as I was about to dig into a pile of lavender pancakes al fresco. The V
flew low and slow. It flew loud and ominous. It alarmed me, sounding

a lot like the war movies of my fifties’ childhood. My cranky Chihuahua
was proverbially biting at flies and I was sitting there not thinking about hate.

Recently, I experienced life with cancer. An intoxicating time, richly infused 
with the liquor of death, but good too because no one expected much of me 

and I was left to my own mind, which is what I’m missing most these days. 
Unless that’s it over there, screeching on two wheels around the racetrack. 

Today I typed gnos instead of song and I wondered if it was some new app 
designed to mess with me. I’ve never thought to call the world sweet before. 

A nemesis can do that for you, make things taste different. Suddenly you’re
a hero/ine. All this devastation—and you’re still standing in the middle of it.  ​​​​