This selection, chosen by managing editor Krista Cox, is from The Familiar by Sarah Kain Gutowski (Texas A&M University Press 2024).
Backseat Scores
It’s not like we drew up charges and nailed them to the door.
One morning my ordinary self appeared—much older
of course, than we’d seen her last, yet still her essential
ordinary self. So dependable. So not extraordinary.
But the house couldn’t hold us all—not enough
hot water, only so much space on the family couch.
My extraordinary self took it badly, jumped
fully clothed into denial. She made claims
about promises, sacrifice, and betrayal. Quite frankly,
it was embarrassing. My ordinary self moved
around her in a tidy silence, sweeping the broken dishes
off the floor. Then my extraordinary self
changed tactics: She took the children to a waterpark,
a carnival, and the arcade. Next, she bought
two sets of crotchless panties and took my husband
on long, indulgent car rides. She cooked elaborate meals.
And yet my dog liked my ordinary self more—
she never forgot to feed him—and the children ran to her
with their cuts and sores. Even my husband preferred
my ordinary self’s predictable morning sex to roadside
backseat scores. My extraordinary self had to admit
defeat. My ordinary self would stay and she would leave.
That last night while the family watched The Avengers
she curled fetal on the carpet and wept noisily at our feet.
Sarah Kain Gutowski (she/her) is the author of two books, The Familiar, an Eric Hoffer Book Award finalist, and Fabulous Beast, runner-up for the 2018 X.J. Kennedy Prize, a 2019 Foreword INDIES Finalist, and winner of the 14th annual National Indies Excellence Award for Poetry. With interdisciplinary artist Meredith Starr, she is co-creator of Every Second Feels Like Theft, a conversation in cyanotypes and poetry, and It’s All Too Much, a limited edition audio project. Her poems have appeared in The Threepenny Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, and The Southern Review, and her essays in Write or Die magazine and The Revisionist. A member of the National Book Critics Circle, her criticism has been published by Colorado Review and Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women. 
Krista Cox is the Managing Editor of Sundress Publications, The Wardrobe, and Doubleback Review. She’s a poet and editor and currently pursuing her master’s in clinical mental health counseling. Mostly, like everyone, she’s just trying to stay hydrated while she fights the system.
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