Summer Romance

Shall I compare thee to a summer sausage? Or a somersault? A salt and vinegar chip? A microchip planted in my brain? A hanging plant? A hangnail you bit off? An off color joke? The color revolution of my heart? Or were you a false flag operation? A true or false pop quiz? A Pop-Tart? A tartan kilt lifted by the wind on a Scottish hill? A Scott Paper Towel ripped from its roll? Shall I compare thee to rock and roll? Or maybe R&B/Soul? The Isley Brothers’ “Between the Sheets”? Shall I compare thee to what’s between that rock and a hard place behind your zipper? I brave the eternal zipline that brings me to thee. 

POEM IN WHICH THIS FATHEAD “FAT ASS” ADMITS IT

My then-husband told me a student told him I had a “fat ass.” She was a great poet, a feminist, someone I’d been so happy to teach. Why would she say that? And why would she say that in front of him? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t trust her, he said. Why did I trust him? And why did I even care? Why wasn’t I adult about it? I did have a fat ass. I do have a fat ass. Why didn’t I simply let it go? Why was I such a fathead about my fat ass? Why, oh why, did I confront her? Why did I say I thought you were a feminist. I can’t believe you said that. But apparently I did believe it. Why wasn’t I more of a feminist? Why did I believe my husband over her? The student explained she’d said that I kicked ass which, of course, in context makes more sense. But I was already invested in my anger. I was a fat fathead ass. I didn’t know yet my husband was a liar—this lie mild compared to the ones to come. Or I knew deep down in my fat gut, but the information hadn’t yet reached my fat head. I did the worst thing possible—agreed to believe them both. As the student cried, I remained silent and stern. She dropped out of college—how could she continue when I was such a fat ass fathead? Shortly thereafter my fathead husband dropped out of our marriage. I hope this poem will make her feel slightly better. That my fat ass misery will make her chuckle and say, what a fathead that professor was.

TALKING TO MYSELF AS I TALK TO MY DEAD

…I
turn to the dead more now,
clearer everyday as I approach them…

 —Jorie Graham

I still hear my mom. Sometimes it’s her voice coming out of my mouth. I am talking to myself as I talk to my dead, though I know the dead belong to us all. Dead/dad—just that “e” between them. Oh dad, I’m sorry

I wasn’t there when you said goodbye to air and coffee and the Red Sox. I wrote “this haunts me,” then crossed it out. It’s not only a cliché, but backwards, as haunting is for ghosts so as I talk to you, dad, I’m haunting in reverse. Maureen, before she died, said she’d try to come back. Please haunt me!  I’m ready! We all are—

your friends look for you everywhere, in clouds and birds and flowers and songs that pop up on the radio when we’re driving. I know this sounds silly. I know the dead are busy. And who knows what time zone you’re in?  Sometimes on the cusp of sleep, I rock myself. I climb out of my body

and stand by the side of the bed, then push my body as though I’m in a cradle, parenting myself as the New Agers might say. The first time I remember taking my body beyond gravity was after watching Mary Poppins. I was transfixed by the “I Love to Laugh” scene, merriment lifting the characters up to the ceiling. Now I’m pretty sure

this rocking is preparation for my dying, what it will feel like as I pass over. So far, I have woken up each time, despite the childhood prayer, If I should die before I wake…Why didn’t reciting it freak me out more? Recently I’ve been dreaming a lot about doors I hadn’t noticed before. I step out of my cramped apartment

down a spiral staircase into an office with a writing desk and an extra computer. Or I walk through a portal into a sunny yard with a stack of books near a James Wright hammock. Joseph Campbell wrote that when you follow your bliss doors will open where there wouldn't be a door for anyone else

and there’s the joke when God closes a door my fingers are usually in it. I thought maybe the dreams were telling me I was missing out on an opportunity, but what if I was simply walking into death? That death will be just an expansion of life? When I collapsed in Tom’s kitchen, I saw his face go dark—just like in the movies—first his forehead was gone, then his eyes and nose and lips

and soon I was on the floor. I’d never fainted before. If this was a precursor to death, it wasn’t so bad. Hi mom! Hi dad! Hi Maureen! My legs seemed liquid, or deboned, and when I came to I didn’t even have a bruise.