TWO POEMS by Kendra DeColo
Ode to When the Music Video Doesn’t Match the Song
After Ryan Burton and Noah Taitano
What isn’t lovely
about a group of men
moshing to a slow song
whose notes drip
around their bodies
like a halo of sweat
the way I drive through
suburbia blasting Beethoven’s
6th in a silver Honda as each traffic light
closes its fist and I must stop
between Panera’s
and Elder’s Bookshop
where a friend’s brother
used to sell stolen goods to buy
heroin and the owner was hip
to the scheme would give him
just enough for the merchandise
lifted from a rich friend’s house
and if that is a kind of mercy
then it is also a mercy
when my husband says
“why don’t you take some time for you”
meaning “you need to go take care of your shit”
because I have that look in my eye
that says I need to be far away from people
including/especially my own family
I need to wear my heaviest coat
and skulk in the cold
pretending I’m a person
who has the luxury of such things
as solitude and avoiding eye contact
I make my own sanctuary
I listen to “The Wind Cries Mary”
while actual wind
tosses a plastic bag down the middle of the street
following me two whole blocks
and I don’t believe in angels
but if I did it would be one
foolish or bored
enough to do nothing
but play pranks
I would believe in the angel
who is out of mercy
and only wants to mess
with us into a silly kind of mirth
while god isn’t looking
who says: who are you
to be this sad
and slow-dances
with us to the roughest anthem
under a street light
that sputters in time
with our two-step
before it burns out
I Could Write a Poem about Electric Scooters
the ones self-described disruptors
created and left scattered
in the touristy districts
of Nashville— which is to say white—
which is to say I don’t know
how to travel and not be grotesque
as the blonde bachelorette parties
on their booze wagons that leave me breathless—
the desire to sprawl and achieve
just like Jesus himself who must have said
thou shalt fuck
over thy neighbor if it makes a profit—
I could write the scooters are lime green
and today I saw a woman riding one
in a tattered wedding dress
she found in Good Will— the kind of slip
I was never tough enough to wear
but envied the girls who could, the ones
who channeled Kathleen Hannah
and Courtney Love and gave
blow jobs behind the bleachers—Oh
to be at home like that in my own body—
to be in the world like a tech
entrepreneur and possess so little
consideration for the world
I can glide right through it
like the frat boy who bought
the historical home next door
and turned it into a bicycle shop
who also rides a red pick-up
with a sticker of an AR-15 that says
“come and take it”
which is another way of saying
“who’s going to stop me”
which is the smirk of Kavanaugh
which is the smirk of a every man
who’s been stockpiling
alibis since he was 17—
thou shall not—
fuck sustainability
I want to be the girl
burning down this street at rush hour,
dress like the iridescence
of an oil-soaked wing—
“come and get this pussy”
written on her forehead
in blood
ready to take down
the motherfucker
who tries to grab her next.
