Eleanor Levine

Daddy and the Cicadas

When Daddy was dying

he watched the Mets

“Been there, done that,” he said

like the kids in school

Now he eats cicadas

like a wild bandit

when they crawl on the ground

every 17 years

Daddy likes Archie and Edith

though Edith died at 90

sitting in front of the TV

with him and Mommy

They were discussing politics

Humphrey was nominated

the police beat Jerry Rubin

with a baton in 1968

I worry about Daddy

stuck in the ground

with no Worcester sauce

to put in his tomato juice

“Daddy and Mommy,”

we’d say at home

back from college

or a trip to New York

When Daddy died,

he met the cicadas

watching the Mets

after 17 years.

* * *

Eleanor Levine's writing has appeared in Fiction, Evergreen Review, Fiction Southeast, Dos Passos Review, Monkeybicycle, Barely South Review, The Denver Quarterly, Pank, The Toronto Quarterly, Barrelhouse, Intima, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Kentucky Review, Juked, The Stockholm Review of Literature, Crack the Spine, Thrice Fiction, Tulane Review, and The MacGuffin; forthcoming work in SRPR (Spoon River Poetry Review). Her short story, "The Jew Who Became a Nun," was nominated by Menacing Hedge for Best of the Net 2015. Eleanor’s poem, “Daddy and the Cicadas,” appears in her poetry collection, Waitress at the Red Moon Pizzeria, which will be released by Unsolicited Press on February 29, 2016.