Poetry: Selections from Cat Dixon

My Daughter Asks About the Shiny CDs

burned with lyrics I once knew,

each labeled with names of men

I once knew. This one is Jim,

these two are Dom, and this scratched

green one is Heath. The red ones are Mark

and the pink one’s Andy. The other names

have faded away. I leave them all

tucked in the backseat in a black case

even though my new car doesn’t have a cd

player, even though those men are gone

—lost to the highway. Each got off

at an exit and disappeared into a stall

at a gas station bathroom or rest stop. I stopped

calling their numbers and I stopped recalling

their faces, voices, crops. Every damn song

has an end. I don’t need to listen again,

and daughter, you should plug your ears.

Love songs skip, repeat, and thunder

over sense. Don’t you dare go down dead-ends—

you might get stuck or rear-ended

or fall into a massive pothole,

damage your axle, and come home

begging for money for repairs.

The Field Where Their Father is Buried

Populated with cows, encircled by a muddy

path, adorned with dandelions and a fence,

the graveyard is off a curvy highway. I doubt

we’ll visit it again. The children

brought candy, Dots and Swedish Fish,

instead of flowers, to decorate

the grave because his sisters spoke

with a medium who said he’d want

sweets. I didn’t tell the kids that

a stranger had talked with their dead

father. We stood next to the marker,

arms crossed against the wind,

and said nothing. The cows

mooed their welcome and my eyes

burned with tears of relief. This

was the final resting place

for the man who made me

a mother—the man I had divorced

when my daughter was six months

old, my son only three. The man

who broke my index finger

breaking my grip off my keys—

I had tried to leave. The man who

revved his engine and accelerated

his car as I blocked his exit. I needed

my car to leave. Would he have

run me over if I hadn’t moved?

I’d been eight months pregnant

with his daughter. Perhaps

he wanted us both gone.

But now he’s gone. The children

and I stand at the grave

for ten minutes and then turn

to head back up the steep hill,

to the car, to the highway, away

from this place, away from

grief he cast on our lives

into the sun setting in the west.

How to Loosen a Jar

At the restaurant, soda was served in lidless

Mason jars with paper straws. We sat staring 

at the menus. I had many questions such as,

Who invented the Mason jar? You lectured 

on thermal expansion: if a lid won’t budge, 

let hot water run over it. For ten minutes 

you played the science teacher you once were, 

and droned on until the waiter returned. With our 

meals ordered, I redirected to the inventor,

but you didn’t have the answer. You carried on:

your mother canned jams and jellies,

fruits and fruit juices, pickles and relishes. 

When our food arrived, I asked

about us. Made of bleached glass,

those words were transparent. Everything

inside was on display, eager 

for your taking. You listed off my mistakes.

I wanted to jot them on a napkin, to keep

that balled-up napkin in my pocket,

so I wouldn’t forget again, but I didn’t.

Later, I Googled Mason jar. The inventor 

had been married with six daughters, 

but you did have something in common: 

Mr. Mason abandoned his work

before the design could really take off.

Cat Dixon is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She is the author of Eva and Too Heavy to Carry (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2016, 2014) and the chapbook, Table for Two (Poet's Haven, 2019). She is a poetry editor at The Good Life Review and her most recent work has been published in Sledgehammer Lit and Whale Road Review.