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Spring 2008
VanBuren's picks:
Antonia Clark
Brad Johnson
Dale McLain
Roger Pfingston
Richard Rippon
John Anderson
Cristina Baptista
Cynthia Brackett-Vincent
Michael Brownstein
Nuala Ní Chonchúir
Alison Eastley
Brent Fisk
David Fraser
Krikor der Hohannesian
Amy MacLennan
Lisa Markowitz
Damon McLaughlin
Micki Myers
Roger Pfingston
Heather Schimel
Rachel Stewart
Lafayette Wattles
Matt Alberhasky
Margaret Fieland
Robert Johnson
Willie Smith
Alex Nodopaka
Jennifer VanBuren
Jai Britton
Patrick Carrington
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Lafayette Wattles
Spring 2008
Cybernetic Love: Or, My Blind Date With A Linda Hamilton Impersonator At An All You Can Eat Mexican Buffet
The apple at the core of your throat
should have been a clue.
Or the way those big hands swallowed
the fork and spoon as if they hungered
for the taste of steel.
And when you harpooned
your thermonuclear burrito with a grrrr
in your mouth like gears grinding
(after the busboy winked),
I imagined you reenacting some deleted scene
where your character (or hers, I should say)
tries to gut that swollen bag of bolts out to get her.
Since you were a pro, I figured you had her life
down to a T, even those hurricane moods.
But when you looked me in the eyes,
as if you were scanning my cerebral cortex
to gauge how I'd been wired,
as if, maybe, you thought, for a microsecond,
I was one of those guys who replicates,
who takes on any form for his own sake
(the type you said you usually date;
the type who, once they get you home,
turn into pure-grade lugs, all piston and rod)
and I joked, Dogs love me, your eyes sparked and
I knew you could sense I'm for real.
You said something, then, about wanting to run away
and a find some cheap motel
where you'd call me Reese and bite my hand
until you drew blood, which made me think
you were made for me,
and is why, when you excused yourself
to reduce the luster of your nose,
I decided to recharge myself,
to be ready for anything the night might bring.
But, in the men's room, as I cooled my face
at the sink, I didn't expect to see
your high-heeled feet beneath the third stall door.
When you returned to the table, I knew
you had more than a shotgun under your dress.
Which is why I was quiet the rest of the meal.
Why I didn't come up for a drink.
Why I never said, I'll be back.
Not because you weren't everything I'd ever wanted,
but because you were and more.
No, scrap that! It's not you. It's me.
And not just because of the way I'm configured,
but because, as "mother of humanity,"
you're twice the man I could hope to be
(equal parts metal and heart)
with the strength to face a world
that sometimes hates you for being what you are
and the tenderness to love it anyway.
Suicide Pact of Raccoons
What might they have been thinking,
late at night, masked, darkness thickening
their silver coats? Was he determined
to explore the far woods,
no longer content with what they had?
Or did she suggest they spend
a night out under the stars dining
on Italian bread stained red from wine?
Did she try to stop him? Chatter warning
up until the end, realizing, too late
she'd stepped too close?
Or did she whisper
about those luminescent berries
he had to try? Did she lure him there,
intent on freeing herself once and for all?
Did she give him the big heave-ho
and simply underestimate
her own proximity to death?
Or did she watch him not see the lights
and jump out anyway, because
a life without him wasn't enough?
Is it even possible to have love that strong?
To be so much a part of another
that you lose yourself when she's gone,
only not the way I did when you were here.
Writer's Workshop Exercise #17 – Love: The Accident, The Gift
The first of us, the dusty man in overalls
whose name I always forget,
the one I call Stanley Blacker, says,
love is a saber-toothed saw blade,
useful for building a home,
but if not paid the proper attention it can cleave a life in two.
So it goes, this thing called love,
mouth to mouth, around the room like a breath we share.
And the woman who always writes about cats says love mewls
love purrs love climbs into your chest and paws the fleshy part
until it's ready to settle there,
while the Goth girl, who's impatient for her turn,
says, so only I can hear, it's a fur ball lodged in your throat.
The old ponytailed dude who interrupts everyone says we need it
to paint the picture of life, says it's the fruit of knowing
light and dark, and the quiet one to his left says she's not ready yet,
so we skip her like always.
Only in my head I scream, No!
I want to hear what's going on in her head.
But I keep silent for sometimes that's what love does,
sometimes the opposite. When it's my turn,
I lower my eyes, my voice, and say,
it's a Duke's of Hazard lunch box
with the right side dented in and a busted red handle,
but the thermos has been removed with care
like the one thing you can't live without,
even if it wasn't yours—the one thing taken out
after the tree where the road should have been
and after the glass gives way
and after the colored lights throw themselves upon the scene,
again and again, even as phone calls are made,
but before the goodbyes and the tears come,
some stranger's hand reaching into that most precious place,
plucking it free—and that thermos is the only part his parents keep,
hopeful you'll forgive them the need
to store what's left of their hopes and dreams,
as if you didn't already have enough of him, beating inside you,
but they give you the battered lunch box with the best of their son
and all they ask is that you keep it safe and keep it open,
that you share it, every single day,
to remind you what love really is,
the accidental gift of a heart.
| Bio: A former high school teacher and graduate of Spalding University's MFA in Writing Program, Lafayette once worked as a PA on the set of a movie with Amanda Plummer and had the good fortune of playing her dead husband in a scene that was eventually cut (which pretty much sums up his career as an actor). His poems have most recently appeared or are forthcoming in Eclectica, Foliate Oak, Chantarelle's Notebook, Underground Voices, and FRIGG, among others, and his photography has appeared or is forthcoming as cover art in Blood Lotus (http://www.bloodlotus.org/), Thick With Conviction, and Carve. |
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By Alex Nodopaka
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