Art: Blueberries by Clarke Condé
dispatches from supper club
“The edge of a lie I offered you / the smell of your body behind a flannel shirt”—Douglas Crase, Toronto
Means the Meeting Place
“The shirt seemed heavy until he saw there was another shirt inside it . . . the pair like two skins, one inside the other,
two in one”—Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain
show yourself
revelatory goodness
tighter & tighter like saran wrap ..
give me shelter
cruelty dressed as kindness
glory to be the thing tucked discreetly in your dinner jacket ..
photo of 5 or 6 Dartmouth boys admittedly v cute
Caption Paul Ryan intern photo
pheromones and ropes ..
your intermittent service
indiscretions seeped in clay
your peony – my mouth ..
boys on skateboards
crushed in foil
my heart in hiding ..
little lamb & sleeping bear
roe v wade whiplash
secrets to divulge ..
If I could I
would forget your
dispatches from supper club ..
solitaire boys follow me
–
–
As my head is bowed over meatloaf, I see God. Damn it, I think, should’ve gotten wings. Dude, I
tell God, I’ve had a really long day. I make a mental note, the world is a mess but his hair is perfect.
–
–
He stands there, all musk & indecision, looking like he never misses a session of SOULCYCLE, figuring
out how to love me. After much thought and prayer, he feeds me bacon & heart disease. It feels
like home, truly, as the color drains out of my ROADRUNNER sweatshirt. I confess, I don’t know how
to make the prophecy better.
–
–
God fastens himself to my body, we are wild horses running in tandem, poppies in his opium war.
Sugar, I say, don’t worry. I don’t need anything from TIFFANY. He looks relieved.
–
–
Sometime later, I spot him holding court at LITTLE CAESARS, my invitation conspicuously lost in the
mail. Another time, he’s papped on the Spanish Steps in his burnt orange polo, arm around a blond
boy named Jasper.
–
–
BETRAYAL, 背叛, REWIND, 倒帶
–
–
I leave God a voicemail. Tell me how you want it, I plead. Love begets jealousy begets hate begets
love begets nothing left. I hope I remember not to die in worship. Problem is, I don’t want to sleep
alone.
electric lemon
You know the story
He became the rain
Then a roaring fire
Face impassive
Flames licking warm & thick & ferocious
The furl of his shirt in hot air
The room glowed
The walls cracked & fissured
The ceiling deposited poisonous fruit
It was a forest & then it wasn’t
She watched the boy disappear into a man
& the man disappear into a desert
When the basement started filling with foxes
They vowed never to play house again
wow you are a lot of *throat*
John [stealing glances, thinking, being cute]
Michael [dreaming]
________________
heavy is the head that wears the crown [ ] heavier is [ ] the body [ ]
knights of [ ] gothic [ ] dream house [ ] in the pantry [ ]
champagne [ ] but [ ] taste of [ ] cold-hearted [ ] lake wallenpaupack
[ ] 4-year drought [ ] fortune-teller [ ] redneck poetry [ ] pick your poison [ ]
another shot of whiskey [ ] shared for generations [ ] no heart [ ] clean living [ ]
greek [ ] small bites [ ] crocodile tears [ ] white t-shirt [ ]
byob [ ] righteous indignation [ ] summer pursuits [ ] clumpy grass [ ]
latticework [ ] doha qatar [ ] greedily lapping [ ] balls of [ ] spread
like [ ] we buy [ ] freckles [ ] salvation [ ]
slow burn [ ] lightning bugs [ ] be literal [ ] be [ ]
devoured by [ ] your drinking has affected me in the following ways [ ]
my greatest strength is [ ] i am willing to [ ] come watch me [ ]
professor plum in the [ ] with the [ ] as seen by [ ]
can’t stop [ ] full of [ ] broken [ ] sleeping [ ] tell apart [ ]
nudes are [ ] cute [ ] what do you know about [ ] the master’s tools [ ]
send help [ ] jaw slack [ ] hotdog in a hallway [ ] superman [ ]
almond joys [ ] talk to god [ ] broken breath [ ] bent over [ ]
wet & heavy [ ] wolves [ ] feathergrass [ ] horses drowning [ ]
lapis lazuli [ ] virgin [ ] shame [ ] white rose [ ] dusty jukebox [ ]
buried [ ] nest [ ] cowlick [ ] incense stick [ ] quiver [ ]
each one teach one [ ] bullfrog [ ] velvet bowtie [ ] choked lamb [ ]
bruised peach [ ] all of the lights [ ] pound of flesh [ ] bees underwater [ ]
put your white coat on [ ] lab rat [ ] lie down with the lights on [ ] dandelions [ ]
look better with the lights off [ ] shagreen [ ] honey on the comb [ ]
chandelier [ ] rattling teeth [ ] gritting [ ] the quick brown fox [ ] washed up [ ]
trumped up [ ] trickle down [ ] the night tastes [ ] boots at my door [ ] roam [ ]
dangerously [ ]
________________
“Dark river beds where a fellow can piss / Where a man passes his dick turns into a rat”
—Frank Stanford, For Those Who Sleep and Those Who Die
“Do you want to dip the rat / Completely in oil / Before we eat it . . . / With you / I’d take it raw”
—Dorothea Lasky, Do You Want to Dip the Rat
About the author:
Michael Chang (they/them) is the proud recipient of a Brooklyn Poets fellowship. They were invited to attend the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop at Kenyon College as well as the Omnidawn Poetry Writing Conference at Saint Mary’s College of California. Their writing has been published or is forthcoming in The Minnesota Review, Yellow Medicine Review, Heavy Feather Review, UCityReview, Love’s Executive Order, Glass Mountain, Thin Air, ellipsis… literature & art, Q/A Poetry, Yes Poetry, Typo Mag, Wrath-Bearing Tree, Bending Genres, The Hunger, Cabildo Quarterly, Willawaw Journal, Neon Garden, The Conglomerate, Queen Mob’s Tea House, Funny Looking Dog Quarterly, London Grip, Rogue Agent, Kissing Dynamite, BULL Fiction, Literary Orphans, Animal: A Beast of a Literary Magazine, Collective Unrest, Pink Plastic House, Little Rose, Milk + Beans, Squawk Back, and many others.
About the artist:
Clarke Condé is a photographer based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. You can find more of his work at his website, Condephotography.com