Melanie Browne- Two Poems

Elaine

Elaine was my friend
during the eleventh grade,
when I was
desperate for friends
and too willing to settle,
she loved Duran Duran
had a picture of
Roger Taylor
over her bed,
her parents
were divorced
she was a bit of a
nerd but so was I,
she loved Star Trek
and Star Wars,
Elaine was also
putting me down
and I told myself
she was just being
"sarcastic," but everyone
seemed to be "sarcastic"
in those days,
their parents
were middle managers,
their kids doing Heroin,
I guess no one was
truly happy,
but they put on
a good show,
Elaine moved the
summer before
senior year,
I didn't really miss her,
she came by my house
to see if i wanted to go
to a midnight showing
of Rocky Horror Picture Show
but I had never heard of it,
had never heard of
Janet or Brad,
or Meatloaf,
I told her I was tired,
had a bit of a cold,
and I sneezed to make
it true



Watching "Less Than Zero" with Closed Captions

I turned
the closed caption
on my television
to see if it would help
my autistic son learn to read.
while he was at school
I watched “less than zero”
a show where Robert Downey Jr is
a drug addict and turns to male
prostitution to pay back his debt,
Closed caption is strange,
for example,
laughing is sometimes
called “collective chatter,”
pop music is “rock music”
while classical
is merely “music”
but there are no sounds
when people are making love,
you only get
“indistinct sounds”
there is no
“ooh, ahh, give it to me good,”
or maybe there is
but not in this movie,
also, when Julian
is withdrawing
from the heroin
there is no
sounds for when
he is throwing up
there is no
“ bleeeeech,”
or “uhuuhuuuhu”
but I have noticed
that now
when I am out in
public I still see
the captions,
I see “idiots chattering,”
and “collective nonsense,”
so I think

it may be working