crybaby
even as late as 1971
the city where I live
had no street signs
volunteers
for mobile meals
had to use landmarks
and hand-drawn maps
to get to people’s homes
I heard that and thought—
that’s crazy
1971 is modern times
my parents were
in elementary school
and you’re telling me
this town didn’t
even have street signs?
but, then again
the heart is even larger
than the world
and it still has no street signs
even to this day
there’s nothing to help
navigate
its uncountable back alleys
today I found myself
on a road I haven’t
been down
in a long while
one you take for the taking
knowing
it goes nowhere
what did I see?
well
I have been thinking about
the nature of beauty
specifically—
can beauty be a clown?
and vice versa?
the internet told me
clowning
involves exaggerating
your worst
characteristics
but I know beauty
is always in earnest
it really is as
somber and terrible
as people say
I tell you this
as I cry
driving on that old
country road of mine
watching the gold
scenery
go by
it’s only a sin if you feel remorse
one night in bed
I said
I don’t think
anyone really knows
what neoliberalism is
he insisted he did
even though
he couldn’t explain it well
“you know it when you see it”
and then, after a bunch of
fighting about it
we didn’t even have sex
that same night
I dreamt I had a carrot
but carrots were animals
and this one was my pet
in the process of
coming up from sleep
I had to remind myself
a carrot is a plant
carrots cannot move
a carrot is a plant
how am I supposed
to find peace
within myself
when I’m full
of junk like that?!
inside of me
there is a cigarette
burn that’s a portal
to a hole
that goes down
maybe forever
I didn’t come alive
to this hole
for many years of my life
I thought I was basically
a happy person
look at a diagram
of Lake Baikal
from the side
imagine
it’s full of carrots
—clouds, cats,
colostomy bags
whatever else
you got
imagine you’re
a human being
a free animal
that likes
water light and sleep
loving someone is
like looking
in a mirror
trying to assemble
the pieces of
your own face
using your lover’s
as a backwards
reflection
I’m trying to say
it burns
it swallows
and I don’t know
what it’s for
or if I should
give it up
for the mountain snow
meditations after watching The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996)
(slightly after Frank O’Hara)
a woman matures once she understands
how to disagree with her mother
my mother doesn’t like Barbra Streisand which stinks
since I am the Streisand of this generation!
staying up late is a sign you don’t totally regret life
and you believe in love and the future
my glasses aren’t rose-colored—
they are Lisa Frank catastrophic
break my heart why don’t you?
I will only come back more velvet than ever
I have no time for medium
thoughts or medium lovers
love is about undressing
and I, maybe more than some others
have rotting meat in my soul
it’s because I think on a mythological scale
I have to, it’s a poet’s job! to zoom in and out between the small and grandiose
until everyone throws up
(I guess that’s what they call catharsis, baby)
there are many models for navigating love
in the modern pantheon, American celebrities
Alanis Morrisette is a minor god of selfhood
and the irony of the fact that both she and Ryan Reynolds are Canadian
is not lost on me!
but I choose Barbra
I will hold out for something reckless and headlong
with, yes, Puccini playing in the end
Mollie Swayne is a writer and journalist living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She received her MFA from the University of Tennessee. Her work has appeared in Carolina Quarterly, Madcap Review, Euphony, and elsewhere. She works in local news.