WEDNESDAYS WITH DENISE: November 22, 2023

For today’s post, I offer Jessica L. Walsh’s fiercely punk poem from her debut collection Books of Gods & Grudges, published in 2022 by Glass Lyre Press.

WHEN MY DAUGHTER TELLS ME I WAS NEVER PUNK

I say, honey, my being alive is punk. I made my life
out of grudges when I saw the odds placed against me,

when my role was to marry a man who’d kill me
and give me my hot young death, a guy named Charles

who would have and nearly did – the day I said fuck you
and threw his keys in the snow? That was punk.

When I called a nice guy who’d loved me steady
and thought what if I can try staying alive, that was punk;

when I had my last drink and surrendered the scene, that too was punk,
and yes I miss the me who would be dead

because I was a bottle rocket, a pipe bomb of a good time
but my being alive is the middle finger I never put down –

I did not let these days go by, I clawed each one from dirt,
and when I get my nails done I am stockpiling weapons,

when I buy groceries, when I gas up the car,
I am threatening to survive long enough to piss off

a million awful people to be alive in spite of,
I am promising to stay flagrantly alive:

This is my beautiful house. I am this beautiful wife.
How did I get here, I say, by my fucking teeth.

 

Comments

[Terence Winch]

Fierce & fabulous!

[jim c]

What HE said!!!

[jim c]

What he said!