sugar we're going down swinging

What the hell, Barcelona.

While we’re kind of on the topic: Geri. Geri. Gerard Pique. I realise that you are not exactly the soul of rational decision-making, but whatever made you think that shaving all the hair off of the top of your head was a good idea in any way, shape, or form? Did you lose a bet? Inquiring minds.


ETA: Oh, seriously, screw you.

Dear Barcelona: I believe in your ability to overturn 4-0 deficits, just not that much. But no, really, I thought this kind of thing only happened to Arsenal.

12.

Clotheslines

You were carried on your father’s shoulders

marching in Detroit’s picket lines

in the same year you were learning to run

from the word “union”.

That is only half of the reason

I am writing this from another city,

remembering Detroit,

the 12th story window of our hotel room

where you pointed to the square

where the crowds would gather their signs in 20 below weather,  

gray coats, gray hair, even on the young folks

but red hearts, engines built to outlast any factory design.

You always said the word “Michigan” like sweetest prayer.

Driving through the back roads near Lansing

I knew you would murder anyone in the car who made fun

of the plastic deer lawn ornaments.

You taught me good taste

is respecting good people

who keep the oven open in the winter to fight the overpriced cold.

We both believe good poems should come with that kind of heat.

But yours can convince a room full of 500 anarchist queers

to feed the plums of their hearts

to an old man who wakes at 6am every morning,

drives to the public school

to watch the janitor raise the American flag.

Everything I know about class

I learned from your lipstick color: Red State.

I still find it on my neck sometimes, pooling near my collarbone,

a lake big as the ocean

without the tide to bring you back to the shore.

You were never sure about me.

You watched all my pick-up lines drop things.

But I don’t play that game anymore.

I spend all of my time learning to bake a casseroles

in case the neighbor gets sick.

And I’ve already hung all my secrets on the clothesline.

You can look out the window

and see the last time I lied through my teeth

my jaw wouldn’t let me sleep for six months.

My conscience buzzed like one of those

terrible mosquito killing zapper machines.

I’ve finally learned love is a screened-in porch.

I’ve finally learned love is knowing everybody’s name

in the town of your reasons to run.

I’ve finally learned love prays

it won’t always live paycheck to paycheck,

but it always does,

even when it’s got “forever” on its lips.

Forever ago you gave me a doorknob as a gift.

I am still learning to be an open road

to the tree that can be climbed to safety.

I think we’re both still learning to believe

the union can always win. Michigan,

we all have hearts that wanna be old pick up trucks

permanently parked in someone’s front yard.

I’m gonna keep fixing mine up,

and someday you’re gonna be sure as the sun

it’s never gonna run.


- Andrea Gibson