Kathryn Petruccelli – poet, writer, teacher, performer

She thinks we can do better.
Although prevailing wisdom says we’re always
doing the best we can.
And God said,
“Who told you that?”
then snorted Fanta out her nose
in the convenience store parking lot
where she was looking for a light.
As luck would have it, I ran into her
again later, at the checkout in ShopRite.
She was still trying to decide between blue
or silver self-adhesive gem stones. A collage project.
“Neither one is really what I’m looking for,”
she sighed and smiled at me in that overfriendly way
like she was trying and failing to remember my name.
She asked me to hold her place a minute
while she ran and grabbed toilet paper.
“It’s always the thing you came in for
that goes right out of your head, isn’t it?”
She pointed at the guy in the express lane
with way more than ten items. “Jackass,” she mumbled.
“And he’s counting on all the rest of us shitheads
not to say anything.”

West Trestle Review, September 2025