Diego Isaias Hernández Méndez, Convertiendse en Characoteles / Sorcerers Changing into Their Animal Forms (detail), 2013, oil on canvas. Arte Maya Tz’utujil Collection.
Ironing Board
We all want something more than metaphor.
We all have a pretty good idea by sixteen
That youth is a clay pot and all old age
Is a wastebasket. This does not hurt much.
At 17, we lust to be print
On pages of novels by Miller
Read by the most wild girl in Kansas
Suffering acne and love knots and fear.
It begins to hurt. I have known people
Who dream of becoming ironing boards.
Poets in Boston dream of becoming
Twenty-six inning baseball games. I am
From Denver. Up in the sky. Simple. I
Would just die to talk to Susan one day.
Read the introduction to feature poet John McKernan by Founding Editor Askold Melnyczuk entitled Where is My Lariat?: The Poetry of John McKernan. (1975)