three poems
by Jacob Butlett
Two Reflections
When I look in the bathroom mirror, I find him,
me at fifteen, staring out with downcast eyes.
His reflection: splattered with spearmint spittle
& acne, braces bandaged across teeth, crooked.
He woke up for high school, just as I awoke
minutes earlier, but for work at the university.
Sun crawls across the mirror, slashing the bottom
half of his head with shadows. I still see them:
his eyes, wearied with worry, glinting with fear
like a caged creature with wings crumpled.
What might I say to him if I could? That there’s
no need to be scared? That being gay is okay?
We already know this. Yet we can’t stop thinking
about our Iowa town, how it hosted the KKK,
a garrison of ghosts, white-robed, storming
Main Street, lined with children cheering.
I want to reach inside the mirror to hoist
the weight of his secret off his back, strapped
like steel he yearns to toss into his closet:
locked away for good. I want to cry with him
on those cold nights, friendless, yet desperate
to seize life by the throat. I want him to accept
what we try to accept: we’re more than our fear.
When I touch the glass, he vanishes, silent.
Sunrise ghosts across the lens of my glasses
as I find spittle on my reflection, newly shaven,
no more acne, no more braces, but worry lines,
always the same, circling my middle-aged eyes.
My Stammer
makes you roll your eyes, especially at parties
like these. Believe me, I wish I could make it
stop. Believe me. I wish I could temper
the music on the tip of my tongue. You try to hide
your grimace as you wait for silence
so that you can speak without interruption, without delay,
once more. You have my sympathies. But I can’t
change how my words skip like stones off my teeth
into this moat of impatience you’ve built around us,
I can’t change to make you happy,
and even though I want you to listen to me, I fear
you’re waiting for the ideal moment to sneak away.
If you want to go, go. The party of my life
will go on without you. I don’t need your acceptance
or approval. But if you care about me, really care about me,
stay, don’t walk away, imagine how I must
be feeling, I’m not going anywhere. Can’t you hear
how my stammer rises, determined to touch your heart?
Hospital
I’m scribbling these words down
with a dull pencil stub I found
on the floor of this waiting room. Wooden chairs
face silent static on a flatscreen.
My vending machine sugar cookie is stale.
I haven’t eaten all day, so I crunch into it.
After his surgery, I’ll help Dad into the passenger
seat and drive him through foggy traffic,
trucks like ghosts fading under the October sky.
The sounds of Dad’s sleep—his snores, his sighs—
will consume the car, loud yet comforting.
Growing weary, I continue writing words:
unthumbed magazines, dusty side tables, fake petunias
in plastic pots—too many petals to count.
Rise from your chair and you’ll see each petal
drooping as if comatose under these dim lights.
Outside the door, people come and go like stretchers
being shoved down sanitized corridors.
All alone, I sip decaffeinated coffee,
which somehow makes me more jittery, more anxious.
Before I finish this journal entry, I’ll stretch
in the foyer, away from sleepy-eyed patients
being wheelchaired off to God-knows-where.
I want Dad to be well again: back to
building porches, watching TV, hugging me at night.
Life is short: a wall clock tsk-tsks as the seconds die.
People in white coats shuffle along. I shuffle
back to wait in the quiet.
—after Katia Kapovich’s “The Ferry”
Photo of Jacob Bulett
BIO: Jacob Butlett is the Head Poetry Editor at Blue Earth Review. Jacob's creative works have been published in many journals, including Colorado Review, The Hollins Critic, Crab Orchard Review, and Lunch Ticket. Jacob received an Honorable Mention for the Academy of American Poets Prize (Graduate Prize) at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (SIUC), sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. Aldrich Press published Jacob's debut book of poems, Stars Burning Night's Quiet Rhapsody.