Two Poems by Fritz Ward
Twenty-Five
We were genuine
naugahyde when we met,
which is to say
we knew how to fake
our real feelings
with a side of vulnerability.
Sex helped, then placeboed.
Then we scrambled eggs
and ate them in the sunshine,
watching for the cardinal
that would make it all
mean something more.
Come November, it rained
sixteen days straight.
We sang ella-ella-ella,
each of us hoping
the other would open
their life wide enough
to keep the clouds
outside our bodies.
Inside, I was building a nest
of trembles, of trifles, of trying.
Come December, I gave up
and turned it all into kindling,
into the ash and evidence
every good savior carries.
Which is to say I failed
her, and it was necessary.
Tonight, the rain refuses
to stop and for a few minutes
I remember to love the sky
even more for it.
Welcome:
Here are the blanks.
Fill them in.
Here are the guns
and the alphabet.
Here is a relief map
of school shootings
and the ten-day forecast.
in Sioux Falls. Here
are the glistening mountains
of garbage and a ghost octopus
in a jam jar. Here
is my heart: a jellyfish
of arguments. Here
is my heart: a nautilus
with a love letter
written in squid ink..
Here are the teeth
of every living thing
that’s died under my care.
Here is the hemlock that—
Shit. You’re awake.
Here you are, bruising me
with my brown eyes. ………………. Shhhhhh—
listen just a little longer.
Hear my prayer,
my pleading, my plea:
Let the camouflage of love
be enough.
Fritz Ward is the author of Tsunami Diorama (The Word Works, 2017) and the chapbook Doppelganged (Blue Hour Press, 2011). His poetry has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Best New Poets, The Adroit Journal, Gulf Coast, Guernica, and elsewhere. He works at Swarthmore College and lives just outside of Philadelphia.
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