Anniversary by Erik Moyer
Poetry Editor Nicolette Visciano on today’s poem: The weight of a laugh is heavy in “Anniversary” by Erik Moyer. By confronting grief through the lens of absurd rituals, Moyer presents a new perspective on what it means to be rational when the definition for rationality has been lost. Gliding through a nonsensical journey like a penguin—or rather a human being with an egg cracked on their chest—is the only logical way to cope with loss and honor a memory. Because when rationality is lost and one struggles to find the words to make sense of it all, one can discover that the only words left to say—or scream-sing—are the lyrics to “Hollaback Girl.”
Anniversary
You put all your prescriptions in a blender
and papier-mâché a bust of Doctor Fauci.
You pierce your bellybutton and pop
a balloon. You gargle blood from the wound
and smear it on your cheekbones.
You set your electronic drumkit to Techno
and let out your 80’s Keith Moon.
You make fresh-squeezed lemonade
and water the plants. You crack an egg
on your chest and glide around the kitchen
tile like a penguin. You practice your putting
and bury every shot. You scream-sing
Hollaback Girl and ugly-cry into the mirror.
Loss never makes much sense.
Erik Moyer is a creative writing PhD student and teaching fellow at the University of North Texas. He holds an MFA from the University of California, Irvine and a BS from the University of Virginia. His work appears in Arts & Letters, Cola Literary Review, Oxford Poetry, and elsewhere. Outside of school, he works as a data engineer. In his free time, he enjoys writing songs, playing chess, and convincing his cat Xena that shoelaces are, in fact, snakes.
