God help me I married a password!
He
changes
every
day
without
telling
me.
I drive my brand new big black jacked-up truck
into my MAGA neighbor’s side yard grass.
(I hope he won’t decide to kick my ass.)
He looks at me, surprised, says What the f- – -?
“How ‘bout we light firecrackers for good luck
since the Fourth of July’s about to pass?
Let’s bond like two White lower-middle-class
heterosexual males run amuck.”
My quite snow-flakey invite draws a sneer.
Firecrackers? Sparklers? Sounds like Hillary.
“But they’re loud and pretty and light the night.
Can’t we share deviled eggs, wave flags, and cheer?”
He lifts aloft a stick of TNT.
Trump’s jailbreak will take some dynamite.
do not attempt to revive old pleasures. the dead
always come back wrong. memory is fickle, romantic,
and a liar. the poet skips arm in arm with it, feeds
its hearth, encourages the crackle and spit. then arrives
at his own childhood doorstep and finds new vignettes
on the mantel, new rusted necklaces in the jewelry box,
new toy blocks scattered across the floor like divinatory
constellations. his stains washed, his mistakes bleached,
his mark smoothed over and reupholstered.
wrench yourself from that hooked elbow before
you barge into the new age with its new sentiments
and all dismissal.
board the train away before you find yourself a stranger
in the house of those who told you never to become one.
Male
leaves
female
by herself
after mating time.
Under warm ripples, she tubes broods
unguarded by father’s thick bands.
He skims the surface
unbound by
widow’s
black
veil.
Once my transition—
the five minute drive to work, the pause
at the light, the left hand turn.
Just a need between
students and my personal life.
Now I shift between
the next maze
and the next heedful task.
Halloween was ours.
The one night a year
You’re allowed to be something
That you never were.
That Halloween,
I was yours
And you were mine.
We were both so intoxicated,
Completely obliterated
Out of our minds.
But dear god, were we in love.
My costume that night
Was your lips on my neck
And your old Grateful Dead t-shirt.
Your costume was
The bruise on your collarbone
And my hair-tie on your wrist.
Though we were comfortable,
My god were we scary.
We were absolutely terrifying.
Of all the sub-par movies
And tv horrors i’ve watched,
I had never felt as petrified
As i did after you kissed me.
It might as well have been a ghost
That grabbed me by the waist
And kissed me goodbye.
The more i reminisce,
The more i think that maybe in fact
It was a ghost.
It was ethereal,
It was soft, it felt so barely there
It felt like a figment.
You were a phantom
Of the last love
That didn’t feel like a chore
But i dont think you were real
And you’re long gone now.
I think if we entered the contest,
We would have won best dressed.
We were so caught up
Being who we never were for one night,
That I don’t think i’ll ever be able to dress as myself
Again.
Do you know why you believe that?
Have you turned over some rocks
or is self-esteem more important
than truth?
Perhaps you write your poems with a pencil
Do you know what graphite is or where to find it?
Could you cut the wood for the barrel
or make the paper?
What’s the ferule or eraser made of?
Even something as simple as a pencil
took millions of lives millennias
just for you
Perhaps you write your poems on a keyboard
As you detail your suffering in ways too convoluted
Do you take a moment to imagine
That you are the African child crawling through that cobalt mine
or the Uyghur slave in the Chinese chip factory toiling
just for you?
You can still drown in the warm, shallow water
Even if the tsunami never comes
Maybe your beliefs are just
A successful marketing campaign created
just for you
For the first time in a long time,
I can feel the sun
Warm my bones.
I can appreciate the golden hues
And the soft tunes
Of the earth strumming along.
I can fill my lungs with fresh air,
And actually breathe.
Marie Howe is always chewing on her lips,
the top one full as though plumped
with snuff.
She chews on them highlighting
their sensuality as though she can’t
quite let them go, they’re too delicious.
Her wild hair falls round her shoulders
like a waterfall. She pushes it away
from her eyes with the back of her hand.
Her poems, poignant as a heart beat,
root out the marrow of any bone.
