Two Poems
Advice
"My love affair was like a villanelle,"
or so my father joked some years ago,
"it sent a happy marriage into hell."
I understood the reason rather well,
"The poem won't pay the debt the rhyme will owe."
"Exactly son, it's like a villanelle."
But how I found myself beneath her spell;
I never should've stopped and said hello.
I sent a happy marriage into hell.
I lived two crooked lives in parallel,
absolving judgment for the status quo.
You see? It's really like a villanelle.
The rotten state of things began to smell,
and then my wife resolved herself to know,
"You sent a happy marriage into hell."
He told me once the thing he had to tell—
I didn't listen to his lesson though.
My love affair was like a villanelle:
it sent a happy marriage into hell.
Bacon, Eggs, and Toast
She gobbles up the headlines of the day,
then tip toes towards the fridge for something sweet,
"A piece of fruit," her mother must repeat.
"A piece of fruit," she mocks her mother's way—
and there is nothing either right or wrong,
but thinking makes that twosome come along:
"I didn't get that. What did you just say?"
"I said I think you're such a fucking bitch."
The words redouble in the kitchen's niche.
One person thundered out and two pursued,
"She didn't need anymore fucking food."
I quoted Hyla Brook while in her room,
"We love the things we love for what they are."
"I'm fat. I'm fat. I'm fat and that's my doom."
And like a fool I sobbed inside the car.
—Steven Borzynski, Caledonia, WI
