Their Marriage
like most stories,
sweet lies woven on small truths,
a baklava adjacent dessert
with black coffee
and a life less lived
on a plate chipped with
the tungsten taste
of corroded dreams.
like most stories,
sweet lies woven on small truths,
a baklava adjacent dessert
with black coffee
and a life less lived
on a plate chipped with
the tungsten taste
of corroded dreams.
I have a friend who lionizes Katniss Everdeen
and one who wants to be Jo March.
I know someone who fancies Miss Marple
and one who’s Scout Finch all grown up.
And I, I would like to invite
Elizabeth Bennet, Lady MacBeth,
Hester Prynne, and Daisy Buchanan
to my house for lemonade pie
and games of croquet.
The possibilities are endless.
Walking is a mound of clothes that don’t fit any more,
running, a page scrawled all over, crumpled.
Though my diseased body feels as unlovable
as a family of rats,
will she still hold me the way a musician
holds a smashed guitar?
Who am I, legs no longer carrying me to places
closed to me now like raging fists?
Icarus half-drowned, head still in the clouds, but balding,
sunburned, scratched half-raw.
All Marie Howe tries to do:
communicate the essence
of being alive.
And she does it sparingly,
with no unnecessary words–
just the gist of the gist.
I want to see how she
pares away the extraneous
when all we need
is the root dangling with mud
and the blossom glinting
with dew.
I was going to write a poem
about all the different ways
I wish you loved me,
but then,
instead,
I put in that new light fixture upstairs.
And then it was obvious
how much of a fool I was,
because who wouldn’t wanna be with somebody who can do their own electrical work?
I am the ocean blue
I am the ocean green
My colors united
Aquamarine
Home to fish
Jelly, clown, and star
Star streaks across the moonlit sky
Make a wish
Don’t ask why
Magic fills the night
The full moon smiles bright
I am the ocean inky black
I am the ocean no holding back
Waves topped with white foam
My colors united
I am home
I’m at the end of my ambivertness.
Pushing June dawn, the four of us stand
in the heart of a chilling downtown Lexington,
three guys–churchmates–and a girl
we all just met through the course if the night,
introduced by a mutual friend already gone home
not likely thinking we still had hours in us.
Across three, maybe four bars and
at the bottom of even more liquors
to match the variety of topics conversation touches:
love languages, niche attractions, commitmentphobia,
and what other adventures we might look to go on
as we all exchange numbers for a group text.
We talk about introversion and extroversion.
She labels me an ambivert, which is good
because I pay attention and take in details.
She mentions being drawn in by intelligent conversation
for the third time of the night;
possibly sapiosexual, but who’s taking notes?
Then bro busts out
with an entire Martin Luther King speech
recited flawlessly from memory!
Don’t allow anybody to make you are nobody.*
I instinctually nod along
as I watch her devour every word like
how in the world am I supposed to shine against that?
I look away, up to the stars
but you can’t see those through city lights.
Or clouds.
The first raindrops are a blessing–
the world forcing us to move
and prompting operational discussion,
where is everybody parked?
Quiet in the back, I listen
I observe.
Be a bush if you can’t be a tree…*
The extroverts are lost in conversation
angling off one way.
Her car is in the opposite direction.
The ambivert falls into step with her
for, outside of desire and any possibility or loss,
nobody should ever be out alone at night.
If you can’t fly, run.
If you can’t run, walk.*
It’s a drizzle that will still be felt
on our clothes in the morning
when we finally reach her car.
We talk without the taint of expectation
and everybody texts when they are home safe
before much needed sleep and whatever tomorrow brings.
*italics are excerpts taken from Martin Luther King Jr.’s “What is Your Life’s Blueprint?” speech.
The insomnia I
was starting to
fear was a
bout of mania was
just my brain’s
response to the
absence of daily
life- draining
soul-sucking
fatigue. A surplus of
capacity, only
available in
June and
July.
After things do not go well with the drummer,
I accept an invitation to shoot clays with Quail Forever.
After my online match misfires his smooching goals,
I fire a shell with no powder through my shotgun.
After such an exciting flurry of texts in the bumble app,
he fails to check his barrel and simply shoots again.
After an amazing home made strawberry soda,
his tone widens at the point of my obstruction.
After a firm boundary is clearly crossed,
not even a calm word will stop his expansion.
