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What Am I To Say No?

MACKIE GARRETT
to the afternoon
I asked for, now that
every shadow's long
& even the railyard's
gone quiet again?
 
There are those who climb
the outer hills shouldering
a rough cross they bolted in place
from a kit great grandmother
left in the attic, my name
on it -- what am I
 
to say no to the old
cult of fat & sugar?
Maybe that's the one
pleasure left late,
bits down my throat,
through guts & swimming
 
the blood’s flight around
my over-known veins, what
am I to say no
to what I want most, this
old hope that I'll know it
​
          when, at last,

           it comes around

With a Low & Steady Eye

MACKIE GARRETT
            Let’s seek out
            what's damp & leaf-hidden
 
            Tell me, again, how
            mayapples bloom
            every seven --
            or was it 14 years?
 
Another time around
the lopsided circle
& we run out
of polite chatter
 
            Another stray worth keeping,
            day-old kittens
            dropped in a box
 
            A garter snake
            too chilled to move
 
            That box-turtle your sister
            kept in a glass-house,
            fed on crickets & honey-dew -- she tried
            to let him go but he came
            slowly home again
 
            One wet corner
            of a torn-up note,
            the slash & loop
            of long-held words,
            the way ink
            ​runs in the rain 
Mackie Garrett's poems have appeared in Iodine Poetry Journal, Big Muddy, Blue Collar Review, The Fourth River, Plainsongs and Bombus Press. In addition to reading and writing, he enjoys playing music, taking photographs, and printing poetry broadsides and making books at the Iowa City Press Cooperative, where he is editor and founder of 508 Press.  
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  • Home
    • Submit
    • About >
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    • Masthead
  • Issues
    • Issue I
    • Issue II
    • Issue III
    • Issue IV
    • Issue V