Ronda Piszk Broatch

Ronda Piszk Broatch is the author of Chaos Theory for Beginners (Moonpath Press, 2023), Finalist for the Sally Albiso Prize, and Lake of Fallen Constellations, (Moonpath Press). She is the recipient of an Artist Trust Gap Grant.

Ronda's journal publications include Greensboro Review, Blackbird, Sycamore Review, Missouri Review, Palette Poetry, Moon City Review, and NPR News / Kuow's All Things Considered. She is a graduate student working toward her MFA at Pacific Lutheran University's Rainier Writing Workshop.

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► Ronda Piszk Broatch's microchap & (selected) poems are available below. Download the single-page PDF by clicking the title.

Origami Microchap with Selected Poems

Lunch Date

Click title to download micro

Cover image from web

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Dad and Charlie.

They plan the place
the hour. One o’clock.

Rib joint on Northern Lights Avenue.

Maybe Charlie pays.
Maybe they get some

extra ribs and sauce to go.

Repeat in ten years.

No prior notice.
No phone call.

Just show up.

Same rules apply,
except next time Dad pays.

A lot can happen in ten years,

Saturday pool games in Dad’s basement,
Super Bowl squares, football coupons

they collect from all the neighbors.

The Ford Falcon, with the pink and red flocked
dashboard cows and fuzzy dice,

they spray painted mint green. Dad and Charlie,

posing for photos in front of Dad’s T-Bird
with X-Rated on the license plate.

An ancestor’s pistol stashed on a box

stolen out from under Dad’s
side of the bed,

thief’s blood trailing out the door

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Poets