2
poems by Jason Irwin
Happy
Hour at the Bull Frog Inn
In a
far corner near the foosball table,
the
trumpet player abandoned years ago
by
the circus, languishes
like
Mantegna’s Saint Sebastian,
in a
blood stained polyester suit.
Two
girls in matching cowboy hats
dance
near the jukebox that’s blasting
a
Bob Seger triple play. I’m at the bar,
falling
in love with Susie,
who’s
navigating me on a tour of her tattoos.
From
archipelago to archipelago
my
eyes travel southward,
following
a constellation of blue stars
that
disappear beneath her low slung jeans.
Things We Cannot Repair
At
Johns Hopkins when I was eight or nine,
I
remember a little black girl with two artificial legs
asked
me to give her a kiss goodbye
the
day I was leaving to go back home
to
New York in time for the Fourth of July
and
my birthday, and how frightened I was
of
this girl—no more than seven years old—frightened
of
what my father would say
if
he found out I kissed a little black girl
and
all these years later she comes to me,
and
I am once again that awkward little boy
now
grown into a awkward man, still
unable
to hold on to things
without
losing or breaking them; unable
to
express all the fears and desires swimming in my heart.
Look
how foolish and boring I’ve become,
for
there’s nothing more boring than listening to a man
talk
of his accomplishments or regrets.
Maybe
we just need to learn to live with things as they are;
the
gifts we could never give, or accept;
all
the things we’ve left broken; things we cannot repair.
Jason Irwin grew up in Dunkirk, NY and
now lives in Pittsburgh, PA. Watering the Dead, his first full-length collection, won the 2006/2007
Transcontinental Poetry Award and was published in 2008 by Pavement
Saw Press. Some Days It's A Love Story won the 2005 Slipstream Press Chapbook Prize. A forthcoming
chapbook Where You Are will be
published by Night Ballet Press. www.jasonirwin.blogspot.com
