Friday, April 26, 2024: Diana Rosen's "My Best Friend & I on the Way to Rotterdam"

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Herring with Bread and Beer (Pieter Claesz)


Diana Rosen is a writer whose first full-length book of flash and poetry, High Stakes & Expectations,  is available from thetinypublisher.com/shop Her work appears in international and domestic journals and anthologies including Rattle, As It Ought to be Magazine, and Dashboard Horus. To read more of her work, please visit authory.com/dianarosen

 

My Best Friend & I on the Way to Rotterdam


It is the simplest route from England to Holland,

a ferry from London to Rotterdam for a modest

fare with our favorite travel amenity: everyone,

passengers and staff, speaks English. Twenty-

somethings huddle for warmth rather than 

affection while sitting on the outer deck - -

perhaps the price of parsimony or penury--that 

Maggie and I are grateful to avoid, happy 

to take advantage of the warm movie theatre

in the boat’s hull, where the feature, a knockoff 

of Wonder Woman is so bad we dispense with 

our ingrained manners to thunderously applaud 

a teen Boy Scout running up and down the center 

aisle voicing his ultra-sophisticated critique, 

“This movie SUCKS!” The one hope of diversion 

from six hours of choppy seas? Lunch! Though 

fans of herring, we are agog at the buffet: every 

single one of the eleven (!) entrees includes 

Holland’s homage to the homely herring. 

Just a glimpse makes us both parched, yet

we laugh at the absurdity of this trip which

reminds us of mishaps of other shared travels.

As her white ashes cascade into the tiny, 

carefully-carved rectangle of a plot in the 

church garden, so do our memories settle

in for the duration. She took everything with her.


© 2024 Diana Rosen

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