three poems
by Jason Reid
To Scylla
There is a sickness deep inside my soul.
To eat and drink with Fullbrights, Supreme Court
Clerks, and a future Nobel winner in
Medicine, to have written light lyrics,
Mere hours before, and to still feel your
Absence — and yet what could you contribute
To these discussions on Masoretic
Texts, Sea Peoples, and Anti-Federalists,
Other than your scaled, monstrous gravity?
Is this the task time has set before me?
To love Scylla because she is Scylla,
Is that my duty? Who sentenced me, and who
Was the counsel that surely malpracticed
Me? The law professor sitting to my
Left? He spends too much time on research of
Melancton Smith; the best lawyers spend their
Time — not practicing law. He has a crush
On this twenty-years younger speechwriter;
She, like my Scylla, is not here tonight.
My friend across from me — we have not said a word
Between us tonight — does not have the heart
To tell him that the girl desires a man
Of radically different complexion.
What does she lack the heart to say to me?
Someone requests some ketchup for the fries —
These European places insist on
Aioli from the start, but the red sauce
Is brought. I dip (we share the dish) and eat;
A little smudge appears on my lips. That’s
What it would be like, wouldn’t it? We kiss;
The blood drips from her lips and onto mine.
*Originally published by Apocalypse Confidential
Sticky Traps
My father disdained using sticky traps
To catch the mice that crawled within our home.
The little paws stuck to the glue, they die
One way or another. Some try to chew
Off limbs and then the blood flows. Those without
Sharp wits or teeth stay stuck and thirst to death.
A few get their noses or mouths into
The glue and breath expires. He used the old
Traps with the spring and spike, baited with peanut
Butter, till the traps proved too slow, for some.
The traps would be sprung and the food would be
Gone. A few mice began to die of old
Age, while the basement suffered, book pages
Trimmed by teeth, urine staining floors and shelves.
A snake crawled into the ceiling, fell through
By growing fat (probably), while I was
Reading. I didn’t read that book again.
The sticky traps returned. And the mice went.
Korigatachi
“It’s good to hear you laugh son, it’s been a
While,” And I having no memory, I
Awoke like a coma patient. No longer
Can I remember the show let alone
The joke that returned me. All is static,
Like a tv that lost signal from storm,
Yet unlike that, I can sit and watch this.
I suspect I could click back enough times,
In my mind and restore it all — I trained
Myself to do that, to make memories
Into manuscripts — those marred madeleines.
I can recall writing a poem, perhaps
My first, comparing an agonist to
Alexander Stephens being returned
By vote to stroll the Capitol’s white steps.
Now it is I who refuse to relent
To reconstruction. Oust the scalawags.
Straddle the fence of indifference too long
And you risk falling down into malice,
Yet careful thumbing of page is often worse.
Only now with age slyly sowing
White wheat on my head to bloom do I know
These things, and only partially, as all
Knowing is. “She didn’t realize you were
So funny; she’s never seen that side of you;
Your dad and I know how funny you are.”
Now too, in certain crooked venues,
I cannot recall the last joke I told —
I am pure romance — stoic, harsh, and grim,
Because there are some who without rest try
To get me to laugh or dance like Nijinsky,
To hug me, straitjacket me like Petro
Grigorenko. I go quiet so I
Don’t go quietly. That too has risks.
The man who from fear of thieves locks away
His talents, turns thief in the light of day.
Today amidst the surveillance gaps I
Told a joke. People laughed. The jokes do not Matter; even the gauleiters know that
People matter. What echo shall that laughter Hold for those who the censors must come after?
BIO: Jason Reid is a law student living in Washington D.C.