The following poems appear in Slow To Burn

Ian

Before you made me a witch,
got forced into the basement to pray,
your mother stripping you, whipping you
with a belt in those sure Jesus strokes,
you kissed me once in the backseat,
crouched low, out of my dad's line of sight
in the rearview mirror.
Then you wrote me a note on scrap paper,
scribbled desire in the margins,
I’ve wanted to kiss you forever.
You would burn these words later like a spy.

On that sticky summer seat, conjoined twins
from brow to ankle bone, this would be the closest
we came to merging, you almost 16, me almost 18,
and I stepped full grown from the jaws of a college boy,
who taught me well while he chewed me up and spit me out,
made first seduction a blood sport.
.
This was only a test, Ian, to see if I could use my power.
Like Valmont, stripping away your virginity, your God blinders.
I hooked you on the first cast, reeled you in
until you crumbled, until your whispered declarations
were intercepted on the downstairs extension.
I cannot remember your mother's face.

The lashes across your pale skin, the marbled bruises,
you hid under long sleeves, your cock and balls
whipped for their perversion, the gall of their hardening.
In the end you would have set me on fire,
brainwashed into suburban righteousness, on your knees
every night until I was suitably demonized.
In the backseat, you kissing me first,
those little pink lips ready to renounce the church,
for one night in the wilderness.

 

The Virgin Mary Appears In A Highway Underpass

Mary pops up in the strangest places,
usually as a window stain or sandwich,
but yesterday she dripped down a wall
on a Chicago underpass, brought the faithful
running with candles and offerings, blocked traffic.
I saw the pictures, couldn't see her face,
saw a giant gaping vagina instead, just failed
my Rorschach Test, going to hell for sure.

If this is Mary, she sure gets around,
recasting herself as a Holly Golightly,
popping up where you least expect her,
causing trouble for the locals.
But why would she choose to appear
in condensation, burnt toast or ditch water runoff?
Some will say its proof that she still dwells here,
runs like an undercurrent, manifests in the mundane.

I say, cut the parlor tricks, Mary.
If you want a little respect, come flaming
out of the sky on a thunder cloud,
ride it like a magic carpet over middle America,
speak in a voice like Diana Rigg or Emma Thompson,
command attention, instead of this slight of hand,
a stain to be cleaned with soap and water,
so easily erased.

 

© 2006 Collin Kelley - Contributor's Bio

Read more about Slow to Burn at: www.metromainapress.com

"Ian" originally appeared in New Delta Review and "The Virgin Mary Appears In A Highway Underpass" originally appeared in Poetz.