2 poems by Fawn Parker

Aloha

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Four men in orange across the freeway

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Tree scraps into a woodchipper

 

My throat, the back of my hair
             in Bushwick

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You are right
It’s all contrived

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Three Wednesdays go by
before I recycle the bottles

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Some days I will eat for you
But mostly I won’t.

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Some days it will burn inside
and make me nauseous

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A red stain on the cotton
All of your hair in the bathroom trash

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A drunk in Chez Claudette
shouting, Prince Is Not Dead!

 

 

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Emma

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I’ve been collecting your ex-girlfriend’s bobby pins 
from the cupboards and between the floorboards,
bending them into dancing legs.

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I’ve been looking at her
yellow bush
in your iPhoto library.

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Crying to you when you’re home
and touching myself while you’re out.

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I think daily about middle age.

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I’ll be overweight, I figure

but I keep it at bay with constant movement.

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Leaping from the furniture like a cat in the dark.

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I throw up most days and call my mother.

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Two images have stayed with me
since childhood:
What they are is of no importance to you.

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Symbols are symbols of nothing,

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Mikhail Iossel says,
and waves my paper in my face.

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The Solway Firth Spaceman
is just an overexposed woman in a sundress.

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I’ve been having dreams about marrying you.
I’ve been having dreams about babies
and it means nothing.

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I try to feed them my tits and they hiss at me.