All in by Maegan Gonzales
by Maegan Gonzales
I am watching a little boy in a red-striped shirt.
The boy’s father feeds a mouse to his sister’s snake.
The girl is maybe four years old. The boy not far behind.
*
The father makes the children watch while the snake
pulls back, wobbles just to still, and snaps at the mouse.
The father laughs, the girl laughs, but the boy cries so hard
that there is no noise wailing from his open mouth.
*
The snake’s name is Iono because the little girl tries to say
“I don’t know” when the father asks what its name will be.
The boy is not there.
*
The father lets Iono coil three times around
the little girl’s unsuspicious neck.
Her body tightens.
*
I lay in bed with a hand on my belly.
Iono’s glass tank is in my bedroom.
There are no children.
*
The little girl is mine.
Iono is somewhere, hungry again.
I knead my stomach with a fist.
*
The boy hasn’t been born.
Iono stalks the mouse,
belly pushing sawdust
in that terribly long glass house.
*
I am in another goddamn bed.
I begin to knead again.
Iono has escaped.
I press down hard.
____________________________________________________________
Maegan Gonzales is an interdisciplinary southern artist, writer, certified yoga instructor, and educator living in southwest Louisiana. Her poem, “Portrait of Complicity,” won the 2025 Editor’s Prize from Sundog Lit, and her writing has recently appeared in Bear Review, Sprung Formal, and more. She teaches composition and literature at McNeese State University, performs locally with her community theatre, and offers Yoga Under the Oak at Imperial Calcasieu Museum.
by Maegan Gonzales
I run myself a hot bath and soak until the water cools to lukewarm, trying to
forget the roads that connect our houses. In the grocery store, I stand in front
of the avocado display. There are thirteen and all too green. I try to think of a
New Year’s resolution that someone might keep like—Plant a fruit tree. I
cradle a small oval and pulse my palm testing for ripeness, hoping its green is
deceiving me. Once, I read somewhere that avocado trees flower perfectly
with both male and female parts, so no need for two trees. I trace each letter
on my grocery list until the round bellies of my b’s and p’s make words again.
At home, my avocadoes have gone bad at the bottom of an iron fruit basket.
Their darkness stands out from orange citrus, skins dimpled and over-ripe. I
split each pear-shape and expose the seed, scoop the yellow-brown mush
from the leathery walls, salt the souring flesh and taste it. I pierce a single
seed with toothpicks and set it in a water jar, bottom-half submerged.
____________________________________________________________
Maegan Gonzales is an interdisciplinary southern artist, writer, certified yoga instructor, and educator. She was born in south-central Texas and is currently located in southwest Louisiana where she teaches Composition and Literature at McNeese State University. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Bear Review, Common Ground Review, Salt Hill, Northwest Review, Midway Journal, Potomac Review, New Orleans Review, and more.
