Poetry Month Spotlight

We are excited to share poetry by Wren Hanks and Tracy Mishkin, whose chapbooks have been selected by editor Kiki Petrosino for inclusion in the Mineral Point Poetry Series this fall. Wren Hanks’s The Rise of Genderqueer will be available August 14, and Tracy Mishkin’s This Is Still Life releases September 18.

Poems by Wren Hanks

from The Rise of Genderqueer

It’s her mouth on my cock in a unisex bar stall / my hand squeezing his cock under the greasy table / it’s my girlfriend on the marble countertop / while I’m breaking a wooden spoon / against her ass / Daddy, it’s me in a car / at 16 / convincing a Catholic boy / to put his hands on my breasts / it’s that you think / I’m a dyke / when you see my shaved head / like definitions / will protect anyone / from me / Daddy, I’m coming / for your daughters / I’m coming for your sons / coming for the dog whistle genders / in between / perhaps I am / the dog whistle / in between / Daddy Pence / don’t wait up

Dear Daddy Pence, meet me at Olive Garden

We’ll compare notes on nuptial bliss / on nights staring at Seven of Nine’s tits / while our wives drink reasonable / thimbles of wine / on ironing shirts / (tomatoes off the vine, Daddy, / and garlic bread too) / on spitting our Crest into those sinks / rimmed / with cat hair / I’ll take your hand / and ask you how long it’s been / really / since one look / at a man’s / brought your pulse up / I know the answer, already, Daddy / It’s the camera-ready red / this soldier’s aiming for

Daddy Pence, when you kiss your wife is it like

stars and stripes / your tongue an eagle’s wing / no wait a talon / do you make her mute, daddy / the way you wanna make me / a silent statistic / de-transitioned with those / chewable / bubblegums hips / Daddy, were you ever / the beauty / on someone’s bed / have you ever been / a fucking object

Poems by Tracy Mishkin

from This Is Still Life

The Deadweight Machine

As if a tectonic shift has dumped a mountain
on his chest, my husband slumps in the easy chair.
Five weeks until the homeowners insurance
drops us, stacks of useful junk around the yard.
The deadweight machine measures how you hold up
against tension and compression.

When he begins to snore like Rip Van Winkle,
I imagine an organic grocer’s typo has created
a display of orgasmic blueberries. I eat them all
without paying. A man in a green apron restocks
the shelves with tender hands.

Before the war, people weighed beginning again
in a new language against the coming storm.
Every time I think of leaving, he catches a death
rattle in my car, stops the house from flooding,
sweet-talks a raccoon out the kitchen door.

This is Still Life

The house has a fresh coat of pain.
Screwdriver and utility knife abandoned
on the bed. Drawers choked
with plastic forks. Receipts, seeds,
and batteries. Needles, carpet tacks,
an open blade. Red string streaming
from cabinets—the battle flag
of a man who throws nothing away.

I should have split when I first saw
his apartment, crammed with power tools
and old TVs. Barely space to sleep.
But we weren’t sleeping, we were burning.
Falling. More room in my heart
for crazy than I knew.

My mother knows I’d rather get wet
than wait. She warns me not to fight
to reach the items on the highest shelf.
Lightning isn’t fair, she says. Arugula
doesn’t make it healthy. When you need
a Phillips, all you find are flatheads.
She calls my house memento mori:
orchids, bonsai, sun-bleached boards.

Stumbling Through

After the yellow tape and the dark blood,
after the wallet with our family photos
is released, after three days of paid bereavement
pass and the jar goes round at work
for casket funds, after I dream of identifying
the body, after the cops come back
to question us again, after praise for the Lord
and the embalmer’s skill, after whispers of revenge
and today we do not mourn, then the first breath
without a sob.