BIRTHDAY PARTY


by Kathryn Scanlan

Three girls live in the apartment. Two share a birthday, the third threw the party, baked the cake shaped like Stevie Wonder with gumdrops for braid beads, made paper chains, filled balloons, hung the banner HAPPY BIRTHDAY DWEEBS.

Rabbit escaped from her hutch, handmade and painted turquoise, top filled with leggy plant starts winding from coffee cans plaid, yellow, blue. Mostly she peered from behind the sofa, but twice she loped under dancing feet and froze, nose twitching.

Later the dance floor circumference shrank, everyone close, elbows, sweaters and boots coming off, hair flat, dark, damp against temples.

Before each new beer opened, this on the refrigerator

Household Items We Need:

1. milk

2. toilet paper

3. trash bags

4. pony

6. ass