Paula Brancato
Summer 2025 | Poetry
Bullpen: US General Life
I know a thing or two about a thing or two.
Oh, Paula.
That’s OK. It happens every day.
Cash accumulation’s the difference.
I can set up the fax to email from your Outlook.
And leverage the tax-free accumulation?
When was your last colonoscopy?
You can QLAC your RMDs in NYC.
They just want to see if he can draw a picture.
This one’s not invasive.
Is he senile or not?
I wake up in a state of dread, every day.
Dread is a state near Milwaukee,
shaped like a head with a gun held up to it.
I’m just saying I checked all the boxes. Sign here.
The underwriters say he’s preferred. Heart valve prolapsed. PSA 15.
I sent a woman to the radiologist. 56. They could not find irregularities to aspirate.
You’re either dead or alive, it’s unequivocal. Unless you’re a virus.
No one insures a virus.
Disability is another thing. We can quibble over disability.
Is Bob Chaplin dead, that’s a $4 million account!
I dead-filed him.
What do you mean, the numbers are wrong?!
Rachel and the baby are fine.
How do you feel about that?
Why?
Set up his medical.
Are you coming in?
The system sucks. Fact find or die.
Paula Brancato is a second-generation Sicilian-American writer, poet and filmmaker. One of the first women on Wall Street and a McKinsey consultant and planner for the World Bank, Paula currently owns her own financial firm – all adding to her unique creative voice. Paula's literary awards include The Booth Poetry Prize, Danahy Fiction Prize and Brushfire Poet Award. Her work has appeared in The Southern Review, Kenyon Review, Mudfish, Bomb Magazine, Virginia Quarterly, Ambit Magazine, Georgetown Review, Litchfield Review and Southern California Anthology. Paula has taught poetry and screenwriting in the graduate programs at USC and Stonybrook Southampton. She’s a graduate of Harvard Business School, Hunter College and LA Film School and lives in New Jersey with her beaux Jason and the love of her life Myrtle the dog.