Monsters + MMoCA: A Response to Talking Continents

Talking Poem
Sometimes we mistake
Grace for defiance
Like holding hands
It feels good
Or flimsy or booms I supposed
I’m undecided
So for those who are undecided
Who have kept open the door
Been candle
Or companion—
Let us forget who’s in charge
Let us let this night
Have its way
Let us break for those gone missing
And for the just-released
To Santiago who abhors
Autocorrect but when it suggests
“t-shorts” for “t-shirts”
He says it’s on to something.
I want to linger in
The list and listing
The punch and the senses just after
Says Emma who speaks
With her hands nervously
I don’t know about any of this
Except thank you, yes, let us press
Our palms into flames
I too have felt
Like I’m being squeezed
Into some other’s maddening machine—
When if ever will we be let out?
Will we return
To our original shapes?
For those who’ve been stunned
Into mistakes, into silence or busy
Into an umbrella or tiger or cricket
Or dream or chase or cage.
In department meetings on the backs
Of memos I write “Jesus”
Write “wow!”
Write “I’d rather die”
Then I feel better
Like when I said to my daughter “If you plan
To do cartwheels, please put on
Some pants!” I knew I’d become
My mother.
We all turn into something else
So let us note which gods we descend from
Or not. Let us foster and willow
Let us yes yes
Let us unfaze
Let me tell you this: one night
After dinner I got down on my knees,
Cleaned barfed-up hot-dog chunks from the rug
In my son’s room
And knew I was lucky.
Knew winter light is the most beautiful
Sometimes at least
To those in the midst of
Or delighted to
To Phou in her sister’s furry moon boots
She walked through the slush
To be here in
I’m learning to stand,
Same as yesterday
Trying to get better at uncertainty
To those going into the world
Or coming in from it
Welcome: for a short while
We’ll go together.
—Matthew Guenette
MATTHEW GUENETTE is the author of three full-length poetry collections: Vasectomania (2017, U of Akron Press),
American Busboy (2011, U of Akron Press) and Sudden Anthem (2008, Dream Horse Press). He lives, works, and loses sleep
in Madison, WI.