Marisa Crawford is the author of The Haunted House, winner of the Gatewood Prize for Poetry, and published by Switchback Books. She grew up in New York and in Connecticut, and graduated from the University of Massachusetts, where she studied Creative Writing and Women's Studies. She received her MFA from San Francisco State University and lives in San Francisco where she works as a retail copywriter and sometimes teaches high school students about poetry & feminism. Some of her poems have appeared in Action, Yes, Shampoo, and Invisible Ear.
RIDING IN CARS WITH MONSTERS
I got my father's sense of humor, caught all the jokes as they poured
down the slide. The slippery/slope/of/reproductive/technology,
etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, and I still hear the monster moaning.
I'll create steps for the monster. I'll create stairs. A pond with skipping stones. Monstrous how the CD skips at my favorite part in the song. I know you, I listen and I hear your claws, paws, fangs. If this is music, it's got a scar running down its middle. If this is music, it's got pull like a black hole.
The monster stole all my pajamas. If I could I would. The monster slammed on the brakes. Or I did, either way. I cracked open my fortune cookie. I walked outside. There was some kind of natural phenomenon happening in the sky.
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE POOL
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I got hit with the ugly stick, and stuff. Woke up in a pool
of monster sweat. The monster finds love so easily. The
monster finds real love everywhere. Under rocks and buried
in sand, behind trees, tangled in seaweed, love, love, love.
The monster has
a) enormous hearts for eyes
b) a locket with my picture in it
c) a fever
The monster has
a) enormous hearts for eyes
b) a locket with my picture in it
c) a fever
I'll create steps for the monster. I'll create stairs. A pond with skipping stones. Monstrous how the CD skips at my favorite part in the song. I know you, I listen and I hear your claws, paws, fangs. If this is music, it's got a scar running down its middle. If this is music, it's got pull like a black hole.
The monster stole all my pajamas. If I could I would. The monster slammed on the brakes. Or I did, either way. I cracked open my fortune cookie. I walked outside. There was some kind of natural phenomenon happening in the sky.
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE POOL
I could open my eyes under water, a
formation of girls like a flower, lips petal
pink. Loves me, loves me not, will never
forget me, dives like a Neapolitan ice cream
cup. Ashley the Acrobat, Tracy the Tongue
Depressor, Candice the Carnival Apple. Tell
me there's no I in team. There's no hole in
the ozone, no scream in ice cream. I could
see everything through your bathing suit,
everything. Guilt as solitary, a kickboard, a
mishap, a sky. I laid my body on top of the
water, floating. The sky is made of Lycra.
Chocolate-syrup solar eclipse, maraschino
cherry, hole in the ozone. I could touch
the bottom. I could lick the spoon.
UNDER THE EVERGREENS
UNDER THE EVERGREENS
You were talking to me about the prominent role that female
friendship played in Emily Dickinson's poems, but it was in a
message on my answering machine and while I was listening I
accidentally deleted the message. And this is a prequel.
You called me up and started talking in a fake voice about Emily Dickinson's life and her poetry, militant visions for mutual reciprocity/ he kissed me. How she sent valentines from the top of the stairs. I knew it was you the whole time/ didn't/ called you back and the phone just kept on ringing and ringing I guess because you weren't home.
I called your cell phone but it went straight to voicemail and your outgoing message said things can't be the way they were when we were younger, that the attic is filling up with water and damned if you are going to lay down and die like that.
You read into the phone the Emily Dickinson poem that's like "Walk on the Ocean" by Toad the Wet Sprocket. Like the hollow feeling after the sleepover/ impossible. We'd put on mascara and listen to music to try to make ourselves cry.
It was April Fool's Day when he asked me to marry. I called you up to tell you and you said that Emily Dickinson's poetry approaches the theme of marriage in a complex and elliptical and radical manner, and then static. I meant to seal the envelope and send the letter. I meant to clutch the poison but instead I swallowed the ring.
You called me up and started talking in a fake voice about Emily Dickinson's life and her poetry, militant visions for mutual reciprocity/ he kissed me. How she sent valentines from the top of the stairs. I knew it was you the whole time/ didn't/ called you back and the phone just kept on ringing and ringing I guess because you weren't home.
I called your cell phone but it went straight to voicemail and your outgoing message said things can't be the way they were when we were younger, that the attic is filling up with water and damned if you are going to lay down and die like that.
You read into the phone the Emily Dickinson poem that's like "Walk on the Ocean" by Toad the Wet Sprocket. Like the hollow feeling after the sleepover/ impossible. We'd put on mascara and listen to music to try to make ourselves cry.
It was April Fool's Day when he asked me to marry. I called you up to tell you and you said that Emily Dickinson's poetry approaches the theme of marriage in a complex and elliptical and radical manner, and then static. I meant to seal the envelope and send the letter. I meant to clutch the poison but instead I swallowed the ring.