Handshake
Posted by Marion Smallwood | Filed under Poetry, Print
i’m a gentleman, you said.
a hopeful romantic, i thought.
a loose eyelash, a fleshy daydream,
a constant reminder to pray.
here’s what went unimagined:
we exchange stories and swap the endings,
hardly noticing how neatly my shoulder tucks under your arm,
or how your hand recites the poetry in my back,
skipping over the lines that are about someone else.
we forget just to practice remembering.
you tell me about my details,
about how entering my flesh is like stepping into the same river twice
about what i feel like midday in july,
you told me which of my smiles is the aftermath of a laugh,
the wreckage is sideways.
we learn each other like we’re something to pass and take again
a great class, a flying color, a love note, the salt from across a long table.
i gotta park in my skull for you to walk through,
a thought in my palm for you to hold—hold that thought,
i promise to be right back.
i promise that things won’t be like they’ve been.
let me show you how much you can carry on that back,
how well you can see in the dark,
what is possible to hear and know and write in a journal.
but the universe is a prankster and timing is everything.
let me tell you what actually happened:
our lips didn’t even touch.
you smiled and i blushed.
you told me the color was crimson
but i didn’t believe you.
you shook my hand and said you were a gentleman.
you told me your name, but i only remembered hers.
the universe has a cruel sense of humor.
it skips to the punch line, shows us the world has fists.
it gambles with a life spread across both sides of a coin.
i wanted him knowing not even the thought of him was mine.
and we all know what happens when you laugh too hard.
Years Old
Posted by Marion Smallwood | Filed under Poetry, Print
With change as steady as the way wallets empty and old cars pace,
I stop and pin constancy to a dorm room wall–
a dozen glossy paper mirrors.
I stare and I am again, who I’ve always been–
the narrator of a funny short story
the neon yellow laces in a black shoe
a first grade art project
a laugh that is so still in all it’s chaos it has no sound.
But I am no longer that much fun
and it doesn’t matter if I write poems with crayons.
The white walls of my room
with all it’s techni-color memories, and posters and glossy paper mirrors
just don’t seem like a giant coloring book anymore.
Slow, Children At Play
Posted by Marion Smallwood | Filed under Poetry, Print
i know that my mind
is like reason’s very first
out of body experience
that my luck
is a cross-country road trip
with a brand-new hole in the gas tank
that my scars are ugly
and my voice is fast
and annoying
and dangerous
and that my sanity
is like an entire refrigerator
of rotting food.
i also know that my heart
is like the questionable stickiness
of a five-year-olds palms:
no one actually knows
what its made of
or why its there
but i don’t know how
to cross the street alone yet
so just hold on to it, would you?
i must say
i’m not in love with the idea
of pumping car accidents and
burning velcro shoes.
Maybe, Me
Posted by Marion Smallwood | Filed under Poetry, Print
maybe my marrow melts,
maybe my minutes mesh.
my minesweeper mind might mend,
might make Miles mince,
might move marble moments.
my mondays meet midyear.
my mid-sentence meanings make more.
maybe makeshift morgues match memories.
maybe my malnourished members mime.
may my mouth minimize mourning:
make me matter,
make millions matter.
more manmade millenniums,
more midday movements.
more midwives, more meaning.
maybe, monogamy.
maybe,
me.
