BEHOLD: THE INEXORABLE PROBLEMA OF MODERN LOVE
contained tonight in the space between
two strange thirty-somethings
at a sushi bar. Outside, frozen crystals encase the cars
and January sighs. The strangers make eyes. The bartender
wears earrings and streams antique songs by David Bowie—
this week, David Bowie has died and we, the bereaved, are relieved
to soak in a sorrow that’s shared. On TV, the President
describes the State of a Union from which many
feel estranged. The strangers make
assumptions. O, to gerrymander
the architecture of courtship, of tuna, of fear! O, to hear
the radio DJ weep! The strangers contemplate confections
of appendages and ramen. They look at their phones. Death
can herald celebration. Speeches can make impressions. The strangers avoid
any impression of failure—they envision velvet
curtains, allegorical flora of the allegorical heart.
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DEAR LAKE OF THE ISLES
If I pedal faster past your point
this morning then maybe
I can push away the thoughts
of other human hearts I can’t get
to them anyway and lakes are meant
to be circles but even circles
aren’t perfect though
at least they’re something
like complete—who was it, anyway, who made
a virtue out of endings? Isn’t it expectations
we’re after and October is liminal,
even the oaks aren’t sure where
they’re going they barely remember where
they’ve been parting themselves
into chambers, no colors come flush,
and if I move quick enough I can make
it all blur, I can forget about the man
behind bars who writes poems
about bluejays, the girl who grieves
her father her braces her red hair pulled
so tight against her head as though
it had anywhere to go.
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ELIZABETH TANNEN is a Brooklyn-born, Minneapolis-based writer with essays, stories and poems featured or forthcoming in places like Salon, The Rumpus, Front Porch, The Morning News, and Southern Humanities Review. She teaches at Anoka Ramsey Community College and with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop and the Loft Literary Center.
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Read more by Elizabeth Tannen:
Short story in B O D Y
Essay in The Rumpus
Poem in THIS
Two poems in Front Porch