Two Poems
Erin L. Martin

Evanston Hotel, Room 209
and he saved her from drowning

1.
can't:
make promises, budge just a little bit, keep
a juniper alive, shoot a zombie in the head, be
rejected by modern science, get mistaken for someone
who works here.

2.
Girls are never told to be a woman about it.Even if
it just means to act grown-up, it sounds more like an
accusation. An admonishment to remember these things:
ovaries, blood, babies sucking for life, pussy --
what it means to be one.I would rather not be
convinced that the cerise is more flattering than the
cherry. There's a billboard for a car dealership that
says how women have changed. Apparently they used to
only come in black and white. There are days I feel
like a poltergeist. Truth be told I'd rather be a
ghost.Gauze and wailing.If only permeability
flattered me. Gauze and wailing.I wonder if I would
be the same person if there were no cerise.Writing
in my journal I came across your name, and pages where
I dared not sketch your profile.There I pictured
chanting bloody mary thirteen times in a bathroom.
I am not scared of things that are gory and
inexplicable.I am scared that I could invent them.

3.
What a hard memory of you
to keep
keep inside these splendid thighs

My friends say you are likely to kill
someday
You don't say

What a hard memory
Of a very soft thing

4.
Bloody Mary, Bloody Bones, Hell Mary, Mary Worth, Mary
Worthington, Mary Whales, Mary Johnson, Mary Lou, Mary
Jane, Sally, Kathy, Agnes, Black Agnes, Aggie, Svarte,
Madame. you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you,
you, you, you, you. Do I click my heels three times
or will that just take me home? And does that mean
you would reach through the mirror, gauze and willing?
Some people would say I was snatched, and others,
simply fetched.


TIME

They are dismantling Einstein's corpse, hoping to
invent time.

In the meantime, a hennaed gypsy
will splash herself with Jean Naté.

Her skirt:
vines, supernovas, pawprints.

Beneath her feet,
a plaque saying that
crossing this step
promises a return.

Its brass face free
of footprints.