by John Hodgen
Consider the twenties, not Gatsby, not
Daisy, not that Roaring, and not
just that double deadbolt year
just past like a Times
Square mask. I’m meaning
all ten, that bright decade
you were hoping for after college
like a swath unwinding, like red brocade,
like ten Handmaid’s Tales crossing
Lafayette Square against the light,
holding their bonnets, laughing
their asses off, like bridesmaids nearly
collapsing, all of them needing
a bathroom, bad, before joining
the Women’s March. You can do anything,
your parents said, or was it your
sloppy, drunken aunt, waving
her Tanq and tonic like a scimitar
at Thanksgiving or your hot cousin’s wedding,
nearly falling out of her dress
like Delacroix’s Liberty Leading
the People. And since it all goes so
fast, that dreading,
that mindsuck, that hellscape
doomscrolling,
you only get one shot, one Hamilton,
maybe two, considering,
and then you’re gone, tik tok, (think
Lorde, think Lizzo.) You listening?
And since it’s also abundantly clear
there’s no gaming
the future for us (think Zuckerberg,
think Bezos), I’m thinking
there’s only the present then, the art
of self-promoting, posting
the mini-marvel movies we make for
ourselves, starring us, of course,
like flashing dwarves, elves, like little
DiCaprios, each a wee King
of the World coolly leaning over last
year’s cruise ship railing.
We’re our own Captain Americas,
Wonder Womans now, hawkeyed, land-
locked, running for our lives, down
to our last Mohican, imploring, exhorting
our loves: I will find you. You must stay
alive. So we stay living then
every blursday with this singular
difference from anyone living
for the last hundred years. We’re
zombies for life. We’re increasing
our brand, and no one can tell us
a goddamned thing.
John Hodgen, Writer-in-Residence at Assumption University, won the AWP Prize for Grace (University of Pittsburgh Press). His new book is The Lord of Everywhere (Lynx House/University of Washington Press).