AUTOPSY REVEALS LASTING MARRIAGES MOSTLY COMPOSED OF SHARP METAL IN A THEORETICAL VACUUM
by Dylan Krieger
i am a longitudinal experiment in elopement
and the results are what you might call
good on paper, as in, they’re still together
i’ve never been arrested, listened in class
well enough to welcome into my bloodstream
the great canonical misogynists of history
what a setback success is, you have to
unlearn everything, and then keep it
hanging around your house like an antibody
it’s touch-and-go with me and weddings
forget red glasses, even with a pile of full-blown roses
up over my head, my mother comes wandering through
sometimes with her two black eyes, the kind
you might separate over, but not divorce
that’s what i absorbed, looming large above
the lesson planners, about what bad men deserve
when the window shoppers point and huff
embarrassed not by what he’s done, but by the gall of this girl
to raise her face above the document, to show it off
Read our interview Dylan Krieger in this issue here.
