Mary Poems

Here are the two poems I've written for Mary. They both take place in Maine.


In Ogunquit

At the Abenaki pow-wow,
some greasy shaman took five
bucks for parking and told us
to enjoy our day, while we walked
out of parking lot Dreamcatcher 5.

Do you remember the smell
of the breeze hinted with organic
wieners and teenagers smoking shit
weed in the port-a-potties? Or the deerskin
steering wheel covers made by the elderly
couple with Rush trucker hats?

You grabbed my hand when the palm
reader blew white sage in our faces
and told us we were meant to be. I was still
pissed that she left Bengay smell on my
immaculate hands when you smiled
and gave me that peace pipe,

the one with charcoal drawings
of men with spears, chasing bears
that made it all the way to the tip.
You told me I could pretend my mouth
was an escape route for them, one that ran
all the way down to my flat feet.

Returning to the car smelling like
firewater and potpourri, you smirked
when I teased you about looking like a Navajo
midwife roving the Arizona valleys,
and even though you didn’t, I fantasized
about being your secret cowboy all the years more.


In Kennebunk

I remember the yo-yo shaped sun when
we walked across the sand, trying our
best to farm the fattest clams of the summer.

We bought pop guns at the corner store and took
one, two, ten paces outside before I fell to the ground
writhing about in false pain, your lips pecking my fake wound.

I looked up after making a clandestine sandcastle,
and saw your face dribbled with gull poop, trying my
best not to laugh when I ran to the pier and stole
a kid’s napkin, right from his yogurt-soaked hand.

And so what? I still talk about the whirlwind of creek
leaves, circulating so perfectly in it’s own simple
waltz across the road, like it was our gusty chariot
picking us up from the edge of the frontier.