Faith Hope & Fiction

By Peter Mladinic

Cadillac Fins

Fins of a 1954 Cadillac slant and curve.
Shaped like Idaho or New Mexico,
a thing of beauty on a car till the 1960s.
Cadillac’s spaceship wings could pierce
a side, if a body fell on one. The earlier fins,
elegant synecdoches, complemented
the whole; in a way, were the whole shebang.

In the museum in San Diego I ran my hand
over a fin—or is it a hump? A fishtail!
The snow out my window will melt eventually.
The empty vial of cholesterol medicine
on my counter awaits a refill. I shift my
thoughts to those ‘54 fins. Shaped like Iowa?
Or Nebraska? I’ve no open map to check.

Mosquitoes

My neighborhood is divided
into people who don’t like mosquitoes
and people indifferent to them.
I myself love rock n’roll:
Elvis Presley, Bill Haley and the Comets,
Buddy Holly and the Crickets.

My black medium-sized dog
hates thunder. I hate mosquitoes.
Talyssa, my neighbor, doesn’t mind them.
She could be bitten by five mosquitoes
on one arm,
even by a mosquito
on an index finger in her sleep
and it wouldn’t bother her.

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Peter Mladinic’s most recent book of poems, The Whitestone Bridge, is available from Anxiety Press. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico.