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.