 Once A Day by Lane Mochow Once A Day when I was little, we left the house once a day: the gas station on the corner for diet coke, the mall for making up stories about what the teenagers meant by their foreign lingo. the grocery store for bagels, black beans, burritos. the restaurant for filling long-gurgling stomachs egg rolls, dollar burgers, ice water with lemon. the greenway to name edible plants in case the economy collapsed and I a lone child without moccasins, turquoise, teepees (as i imagined my ancestors had) were left to collect watercress, pick the leaves from dandelions, dig up sassafras root with my nimble fingers. the bank to wear my nicest ankle length skirt to stand behind her in silence as mommy cashed her check stuffing the cash in her billfold as though her life depended on it (it did). i never noticed the knowing look in the cashier's eye, the wag of his buzz cut at our arrival, the wipe of her minimum wage saltwater, when mommy's beaded braids the ever-present rustling of a brooding hurricane came upon the horizon. mommy's rage would white knuckle grip their great black oaks at the trunk, plead into Jesus' dime per minute payphone they drown in a clawfoot of their own blood. "Say amen! Say amen! Say amen!" "Amen."  Bio: Lane Mochow is the author of the chapbook, "Ink." He won first place in the 2018 Tennessee Magazine Poet's Playground in the 19-22 category. He has contributed poetry reviews at Sacred Chickens.
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