Nina Couser Writes

In Rome, on any given day of the week when Italians have an extra marital fling, they call it “una storia” – a story.  Nothing major. Not grounds for separation, home wrecker, I’m gonna divorce you and take you to the cleaners.  Just a story. “I tell you, it’s a shame you’re blind,” I say to the woman beside me, “because I’m gorgeous and well, I think you’re missing out.” She laughs.  I lift my head and smile at the guy sitting opposite.   “And that guy’s gorgeous too,” I say winking.  “He wants to come over and join our party. Come on over, that’s it.  I’m Ros and what’s your name? Pete?  Hi Pete.  And this is… Mirabelle.  Mirabelle? Wow, I was not expecting that.” Pete laughs.  His shoulders move up and down.  He can’t hide his nature.  Powerful shoulders.  The scent of shower gel rising. He catches the eye of a woman passing by.  She smiles and sits down at the nearest free seat. Mirabelle taps her cane. ...

You grew up in haunted houses. You thought everybody did. Ghosts were a fact. Your mother saw them. Or wished she did. They lived in various rooms throughout the house. They waited on the stairs at night. As you tiptoed from your room, they lumbered from their den on the fifth stair, shrouded, sad. Were they to have grabbed you, you would have known the full extent of what it means to be unhappy, even at your young age. Their sadness might have tainted you for the rest of your life. You hid in your room, under the covers, thirsty, whispering to your sister. She felt it too. The hairs on your forearms touched as you clung together.  Mum, you whispered, without trying to waken her. This was a game. Ghosts were the familial glue you brought with you from house to house. Once when you are ten years old, your parents drive you to a field in the middle of nowhere.  Under the shadow of a purple hillside, the gable wall of a zombie cottage breathes its last breath. You c...

Shells Marriage is a shell, a space for sound. You can be standing right there on the edge of the sea but you'll have marriage cupped to your ear,  rushing through you like  the swell of soft-closing doors  in another room as you squeeze your thighs into tired old jeans, the wet sucking sound  of rubber on gravel as he backs out  of the drive on Sundays, always leaving white noise inside the silence, a scratching  of vows under the arched eaves of your semi-detached,  the sound in your head like hand-stitched lace trailing on dry paper, incessant  as sea foam frothing  on the rocks, bold as mice spooring on the lawn. by Nina Couser This poem won 2nd prize in the  Pen Nib International Writing Competition 2021  *to spoor = to track or trail an animal or person Nina Couser When I wrote this poem, I was thinking about all the ways that love can change, morph or even die.  Shells are what we collect on days by the beach, which can ...

Within an hour Maria will be writhing on stage behind the grill of a steel cage, wearing nothing but a pair of killer heels and her killer panties. Her stomach in knots.  This heat. She’s sticky, uncomfortable.  Her swollen ankles throb with their own heartbeat. Her shoes are cement blocks. I can’t go on I can’t go on I can’t go on.  She has to tell him tonight. “Franco, wait up a sec. Franco.”  Her dress rips at the split as she runs to catch up with him.   Franco turns but doesn’t break his stride. “Franco, hang on, wait up. Franco.” Maria clutches his elbow.  Her hands are bright orange in this light, her nails and fingers the size of bear claws. “What is it, Maria?” His breath sags with cigarettes and booze. “It’s just – Franco.” She’s opens her palms. What does she think, that he will read her mind?  Tell her Don’t worry Doll, take the night off?   This guy? “I can’t go on,” she says. Franco stops.  Even though she towers over him, ...

I take my notebook. This notebook.  The lines are exactly the right width apart.  The width of the page just right.  The colour of the page is soft, not white. I take my pen.  A good pen.  This pen flows freely.  This pen does not smudge.  The nib rolls as if there were nothing in the way. I take my notebook and my pen because there is a voice in my head.  If I don’t write it down the voice will come out my eyes.  My voice might come out of your eyes. There is nothing more painful than my voice coming out of your eyes.   It comes out of your eyes corrupted.   You squander my voice by missing its colour. There is colour in my voice.  The colour of my voice comes out my pen.   I write, “pen” and “nib”. I write, “my voice comes out your eyes”. I write, “nothing more painful.” I sit back and feel an injury has healed. My pain comes out your eyes.  My pain comes out my pen.  Look at it.  Look betwe...