Saturday Dec 21

On Hiatus

Maggie Glover - Poetry

Maggie Glover is originally from Pittsburgh, PA. Her poetry has appeared in The Journal, Smartish Pace, Tygerburning, Verse Daily, and other literary journals. Her book, How I Went Red, is forthcoming from Carnegie Mellon University Press in 2014. She lives in San Francisco, CA.
---------
 
 
 
 
For a Friend, Challenged
 
 
I shouldn't have left you,
without  a without.  So you made one
 
with your own hands.
This isn't about anything
 
but the actual needle
in its plastic sleeve, a literal pin
 
in a literal cushion,
sitting inside your desk drawer
 
among de-threaded necklaces,
plastic beads & gunky chains.
 
It doesn’t need finding to stay put.
Where would you live now? Where do I?
 
My father is in a hospital, his fat heart drying out.
I have my own heart & unmoored trees,
 
uprooted & left for pick-up.
The cat claws at the doorframe.
 
The garbage truck comes & goes.
We are all writing about each other
 
in chorus, an out-loud wince,
a cicatrix so unable to heal
 
that the universe must open wide to swallow it.
You said: one deer head on the wall
 
made the bedroom feel pastoral—
 your childhood with Mom and Dad.
 
But many deer heads, collected in the shed,
their eyes a dark forgery,
 
became a record of flesh,
a sum of ghosts that keeps you awake, counting—
 
 
 
Poem from the Hotel
 
 
Frustrated with my reform efforts, I gave up—
stopped tending to myself like an injured whitetail  (nursing
the broken parts with a handkerchief,  a round of gauze to lift
the ooze away from the body,) and mapped out my identity loss
in real space, like a blood splatter. The cold wind from the bar window 
reminds me that there are still palm trees in December, swaying.
This means nothing to me, dear reader.  I am already aware of my choices. 
I can care, or not care.  I can wait, or not wait. I cannot be armed by my secrets.
I do not know what they are. I can ask you for another chance.  This time,
with a plot: a man walks into a bar. He sits next to a woman, who is wearing
only one shoe. He asks her for a cigarette.  His blue eyes have blue eyes.
She is already dead. She gives him the cigarette, anyway.