Alessandra Nysether-Santos

Alessandra Nysether-Santos

Alessandra Nysether-Santos (they/she) is the author of fat magic (2025). They live in Florida with their sweet lil family. Alessandra facilitates community offerings like creative workshops, faith exploration programs at her local Unitarian Universalist church, and moon circles.

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Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge

winter midmorning light bounces off

lightbulbs stained by secondhand smoke of

countless phantom limbs from the Saturday night crowd

careening in and off the front porch reserved for cigarettes

and their captive audiences,

but right now, it is empty and cold 

Sunday morning and i can’t believe i’m feeling better

even with last night’s tension hanging in the thin, dusty air

pool table frozen in a half-finished game, 

the inflatable light-up unicorn unplugged,

and a plastic disco ball with little rainbow disks rotates endlessly,

slowly, the candy circles of light weak in the early December sun 

streaming in from 3 windows 

above the bar, a small box TV perches in the corner 

and Mermaids is on so all six of us alive in there,

we all just keep looking up

as people tend to do on a day of sabbath

even when i discover the jukebox with a cardboard sign:

free on Sundays

we can’t stop watching Cher,

not for long

Queen and Fleetwood Mac and Dolly Parton and Smashing Pumpkins and Otis Redding, 

they all love the movie

and when the food comes out like the drinks last night

(they get the job done, but don’t go down how you expect)

Emma tells a story about a guy who threatened to break her jaw 

because she didn’t want to play pool with him

and how the owner booted and banned him,

her right there, Emma points with her eyebrows

to the woman, hand on her hip and the other hand 

tapping the TV remote on the bar

shaking her head, watching Cher run away again