On the first day of class, we wrestle heuristics

[wpaudio url=”/audio/5_4/Menting2.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″]

What was your first nickname?
Did it include your first pet (Mittens)
and the road (Shady Lane) you lived on
when you were ten? (Did children make fun
of your stutter or lisp? Did they call you
Mitten-Spittens, Thady Thlane, Shady
Spit-Shit?) What are your two truths,
your one lie? (Is the lie more interesting?
Your truth a lie you convinced yourself is true?)
Your favorite food—what is it? Would you eat
road-kill for $1000 (for friendship or love)?
Have you traveled somewhere warm
when you lived somewhere cold?
(Was the warmth outside, the cold
in your heart?) How many siblings do you have
(do you wish you had fewer, like after Thanksgiving
when your stomach is full and your mouth, empty
of words, and dry of spite)? Your favorite activity—
what is it? Do you run, draw, ski, dance
(spy, wait for the mail carrier just so you can ask him
about his shoes)? What scares you, really scares you?
Does this scare anyone else? (Would you be less
afraid if it did?) What would your superpower
be? To fly, to heal, to disappear (to reappear
in yesterday, last week, last year)?
Were you born too late, too soon
(born again)?   If you could be
someone else, anyone at all, anyone
other than you, who would you be?
(Who are you? Will you tell us
who you are?)

Smarch

[wpaudio url=”/audio/5_4/Menting1.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″]

Last year, we changed the name,
first called it shit-March, then Smarch:
a month of foreboding weather.
What was there to look forward to?
Gray snow, backyards full
of dog waste, spring break with no money
and nowhere to go? Here, spring is all wrong,
where the lake dominates and flannel
becomes second skin by May. And everyone
wants escape from heat as forced air, forced
courtesy, forced conversation. We’re no different.
That scare we had on the Ides, in the car,
the deer outside skittering black ice,
our brakes on the same surface? That moment
of flashed cliche—I saw you, you saw me,
and we were parting beyond possibilities
of crunched metal, busted spleens—
should have served as soothsaying.
But no. Instead, just like the month itself,
there we sat weeks later with February’s
leftovers: crushed valentines still stuck
and abandoned in mailboxes, the melting
snow, with more brewing on the lake’s
horizon. Toward our end, when finally
it came like crocuses sprouting,
we still strapped on boots and smiles
as morning routine. We still grabbed
our tools as we headed out the door,
for you the shovel, for me the salt.
We cleared the front walk.
We made it safe to pass on by.