Jennifer Lagier- Two Poems

Picked Up, Cast Down

 

He smiles,

slides onto the

neighboring bar stool,

buys your next round.

“Spawn of Lucifer?”

you conjecture,

observing his

black fingernails,

grim reaper tattoos,

H-A-T-E carved

across his knuckles.

“Close,” he responds,

grips your thigh

with his talons,

knocks back tequila.

gnaws an earlobe,

draws blood.

You inhale the aroma

of sulfur and brimstone,

feel bruises blooming.

He’s the one who

can make you burn,

the kind that leaves

permanent scarring.

 

 

Midlife Crisis

 

Its arrival coincides

with your hunger for taut boys

with empty heads and endurance,

chronic muteness,

and a nine p.m. curfew.

 

Computer screens and old photos

make you cry.

So does the sight

of unopened mail,

on the tile kitchen counter.

 

It paints your face over

so you look like your mother,

implants amnesia

in the last of your brain cells.

 

Suddenly

you are ready to run away

to Soquel or Costa Rica

with a tattooed lesbian activist

or your boss's conservative partner.

 

Instead,

you cut your hair,

enroll in tai chi,

boost your dosage of hormones.

 

 

Jennifer Lagier is willing to buy the first round for any snakes in her vicinity, dead, alive, already stoned, or just napping.