Two Poems
Andrea Vaughan Epistemology the word means something else the thing is never the thing everyone agrees in my pocket I rub two coins together make heat in my jacket, quantum decoherence on the space station time bends at the edges photons are waves are particles are waves are photons are fake it’s the bearing witness that alters so what did you see? a smile gone slack gone sideways gone a figure across a corn field swaggers in the heat shimmer power lines crisscross the sky optics elude you in other parts of the multiverse I hold a caliper to a bruise in other parts of the multiverse this doesn’t mean anything economy is seamed up by social construction the DOW is a cubist painting the full faith and credit of the United States is a collage: something made of something we’re just guessing if it was real, you know it too existence, that which was observed you know what you’ve done the making the co-creation in silence the fabrication ex nihilo in the beginning was the word and the word was god and the word was with god and the word ate a broiled fish in silence I Know Your Middle Name and I Wonder If You Know Mine I know you know your boyfriend is in love with me. I told him that I didn’t want to be with him, but why do I still hate seeing pictures of you? Your hair reminds me of a penny, of strawberry lemonade. You’re so pretty that I write poems about you, keep hoping that your face might be the one that looks back when I look in the mirror. Isn’t it funny, that I have the thing that you want? I burned the ends of my hair trying to get them to curl like yours. When I hug your boyfriend, I can smell your body butter on his clothes. Clementines. I want to go to your house and meet your parents. I want to see how you decorate your room. I want to know if you noticed those earrings I was wearing when I dropped him off at your house, even though I stayed in the car. Wouldn’t it be funny if we shared your boyfriend, swapped him back and forth like other girls trade clothes? Has anyone ever told you that a grapefruit-colored lipstick would look really nice with your skin tone? It would. I think you should try it. |
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About the Author: Andrea Vaughan is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet in Chicago, Illinois. Her work has appeared in journals including Vector Press, Juked, decomP Magazine, and Darling Magazine. She is a doctoral student in literacy and on the weekends she plays the drums.