Two Poems by Zoe Mays
Associate poetry editor Sally Geiger on the first of today’s two bonus poems: “The Kick” takes its time. Meditating on performance and (dis)service, its rhythmic, winding sentences slap like falling slowly down stairs. The poet reinvigorates the literary self-portrait here, capturing an exquisite mise-en-abyme in the multitude of selves throughout. This is a self-portrait as self-portrait, but with an attitude and wicked musical imagination at its core that blows portraiture out of the water.
The Kick
I was said to have been an easy child, eager to please my elders
by entertaining myself, performing the whole line of high kicks snapping
my legs like croc jaws for the rapt audience of me—who sat smoking
up the theater with thin inexpensive cigars and yelling
NICE TUSH, SWEETHEART at myself from the front row. Yeah, yeah, so
I’ve never left the house in assless chaps, nor held a man crying in my arms.
These are events I can live without. I can get by muttering PIG through teeth
coated with vaseline to hold a smile while kicking thirty slim legs
in the air in perfect unison. I can be my own grouchy hairless manager
with gold rings stuck for years beneath the bloat of my knuckles. I can say
CRY ME A RIVER, KID when I ask for a raise and in response throw a shot glass
across the room at my feet. I’ve never punched a man in the face, but I’ve
toed a roof’s edge for the thrill of not falling. I’ve crouched like a boxer with
my back to the wall.
Sally Geiger again, on today’s second bonus poem from Zoe Mays: Revealing itself in crisp syntax and startling line breaks, “Blowout” (un)envisions a present/future it both desires and forsakes, navigating expertly the amorphous place of poetry in the life of the poet. With eloquent nonchalance, the poem steps into and out of strangers’ lyrics like the furs, rings and hats it uses to mark them. What’s so good about “Blowout” is the question it implies: is it the poet that wants better for the poem or vice versa?
Blowout
I thought by now I’d have done something glamorous. Divorce
a stockbroker, start calling booze hooch, wear furs I claim are real
or faux depending on the audience. Leave him broke and begging
for divine intervention. Say over hors d’oeuvres, Only God can help that man now,
to whoever will listen. Starting next year I’ll adopt a pinky ring attitude,
be, whatever this phrase means to you, that guy. Say things like I’m not all t&a you know,
even though no one would say that about me in the first place. Go to New York
and wave a sign outside The Today Show. I want to be on TV!!!!! or
trust me, you don’t want to know!!! Then they’d have to ask. After that I’d turn
to hats. Bold, provocative hats. Hats that ask: When was the last time
you were truly fearless? Here I have wood floors,
which is nice but demanding. Dust and crumbs stick to my feet
and get in my bed. I have eggs from my neighbor whose son keeps a coop.
Reservations at restaurants unlikely to fill, and enough gas to get there.
I thought by now I’d be hard as summer hail. A bitch with tattoos crawling
down her calves. Drop dead gorgeous. Mean as a snake.
Zoe Mays is a grad student at The Ohio State University whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Hobart, Southern Indiana Review, Little Patuxent Review, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere.
