Tag Archives: poem

I’m not feeling up to writing and illustrating a full-blown post tonight… but I do wish to post something. Therefore, I will post a poem I wrote for a class about a strange interaction my (current) boyfriend and I had with a person outside a Rent a Center.

Tiresias

One day we sat outside the local Rent
a Center, letting summer’s sticky embrace
chase us to the shade. The boiling cement
transformed the world into a humid lake.

My legs adhered to the suede couch on the sidewalk
outside the store as silence took us over.
then the man showed up and started to talk
to us. He asked Matt and I if we were

college students, if we were together, and
if we would like to hear a poem he wrote.
I said yes, we go to Mary Washington.
Matt said no, we are not dating. We both

said sure, go ahead and recite; it was too muggy
to go anywhere. Skeleton-thin and wearing
a baggy jersey and a do-rag, he was at once
utterly strange and compelling. I recall staring

at him and trying not to laugh my skepticism.
The poem was called “United States of Babylon.”
He recited it all, from disgusted tirade about hedonism
to God’s impending punishment: nuclear bomb.

He left with words of warning only for Matt.
“Not everyone who smiles to your face is your friend.”
As the boy thought and I wondered why that
bit of advice had not also been directed

at me, he disappeared into the blinding sunlight.
It would have been much more mysterious if I hadn’t seen
him later. as bright day yielded to night,
We glimpsed him later under a bridge drinking beer.