Thank-You Note to the Supposed Lesbian Who Stole My Boyfriend
(first appeared in Slow Trains)
You and your
clingy shirts with
girl cartoon characters,
your funky glasses
and super-short haircut.
You and your
over-and-over
broken heart,
knowledge of diners
and flea markets,
vegetarian recipes.
You took him,
and forgot to say
sorry.
But then,
I forgot to say
thank you.
The Seductiveness of the Memory Hole
(first appeared in The Magazine of Speculative Poetry)
“He crumpled up the original message and any notes that he himself had made, and dropped them into the memory hole to be devoured by the flames.” – George Orwell’s 1984.
We have an invention. We
invented it. What you do is,
you email us the thing
that you want to forget.
You list every detail. You
describe in full. When we
get the email, we delete it.
We don’t just delete the email.
We delete the thing. The thing
never happened. No one involved
will remember it; no one
who heard the story will
repeat it; even you yourself
will forget it.
We have done it already.
We are doing it right now.
Or Not
with Daniel M. Shapiro
(first appeared in 42opus)
We could get married. Have children. Be happy. Or decide
not to have children. I could marry your best friend.
I wield a potent vocabulary. You’re pulchritudinous. I napped
through English class. You know. Like. Um. Ah. You’re hot.
Do you remember what I said, that night in the car?
You don’t? Me neither. But at the time, it was true.
You loved how, tuxedoed and boutonniered, he squeakily asked
you to dance. But he might’ve just nodded. At somebody else.
She told me things about you that I already knew. I pretended
I didn’t and gave her away. It was easy. Or not.
Well, you know I would never try to stop you. Just go ahead.
You’re probably better off doing that, anyway. Wait.
Jessy Randall‘s collection of poems A Day in Boyland was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award in 2008. Her 2009 young adult novel, The Wandora Unit, is about love and friendship in the high school literary crowd. Her newest book is a collection of collaborative poems, Interruptions, written with Dan Shapiro and published in 2011. Her website is http://personalwebs.coloradocollege.edu/~jrandall/.
Daniel M. Shapiro‘s chapbooks are Teeth Underneath, Trading Fours, and The 44th Worst Album Ever. He and Jessy Randall have a collection of collaborative poems, Interruptions, now available from Pecan Grove Press. He blogs at http://littlemyths-dms.blogspot.com/.
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