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Three Poems
by Larry Narron The first time I saw fireflies I thought a wild animal, perhaps Bigfoot, was blinking at us not too far from our campsite, squeezing his eyes shut each time for as long as he could so we wouldn't notice too many sparks popping out from the leathery slits formed by the wrinkling of their lids. Even Sasquatch, I reasoned, familiar as he must be with the trails of Roosevelt National Park, must worry about stumbling blindly into the darkened aluminum of a Weekend Warrior slumped in a lot, about squashing the toads commencing their solemn council at the door of the outhouse, about barging in on the fragile dreams of small children by crushing too many discarded beer cans under his seven-toed feet. You scoffed at the uncharted wilderness of my mind & tried to comfort me by insisting there was no such creature as Bigfoot, that I should try not to blink so I wouldn't miss out on the spectacle of the lightning bugs thumbing the wheels of their miniature lighters, holding them up as they relished music only they possessed ears small enough to perceive. Illusionist A squirrel picks at a salad of cigarette butts, flings away pine needle garnish, makes a paper napkin appear like a scarf. Then, bit by bit, the scarf vanishes into its mouth right before my eyes. Icebreaker I know the man who loves Cool Ranch Doritos majored in Spanish at Swarthmore, that he was captain of the Quidditch team there, that he led them to victory over Haverford, that he hated all the rich kids who went to either school & wanted to beat all their Trump-loving asses with his broom, that he didn't. I know our new boss might wear pinstripes & ties to the office, but on weekends she likes to dress up as a gargoyle, make stop-motion movies of her prowling the rooftops of churches, rewatch The Crow with her ex. I know her ex-husband is gay, that she didn't know this for years. No one else knows (except now we all do). I know the janitor appreciates icebreakers about as much as I do, that she roots for the Steelers instead of the Eagles. I know she's prediabetic, but who would've known? Not even the analyst would've, who no one would've supposed knows so much about numerology, who gets tears in her eyes when she writes down the dates of our birthdays. I know everyone's read Harry Potter but me, & so I have nothing to say when they ask me, “Which house are you in?” They tell me the icebreaker will help them decide. Then I'll know where I belong. for Olivia |
Larry Narron is a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. His poems appear or are forthcoming in Booth, The Brooklyn Review, Phoebe, Santa Clara Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, The Boiler, and elsewhere. They've been nominated for the Best of the Net and Best New Poets. Larry grew up in California
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