TED POWERS

Ohio Poem

We love in a world
of shitty umbrellas
It’s everyone’s team
If a violin could break
I was that violin
I possessed madness 
and hair You were 
a really good prayer:
You’re life is not 
out of moves 
A heart was thrown 
against the hours 
Very little 
from that year survived
I wanted you 
to make me feel
like the last girl 
in the hot tub
I don't remember why

Necessary Past

I was designed to die in a car crash 
but I died waiting for it.
You must be Car Crash. Hello.
I do not shake hands either.
Car Crash is not a good name for you.
I will call you Samuel. Samuel
I think you are supposed to
take me out to dinner first.
You know the routine.
I pick the restaurant. We seat
ourselves. I tell my story.
You nod a lot. I order too much,
delaying the inevitable. Then
it comes time to pay and you
leave an enormous tip
on my side of the table
so our hot waitress
will want to come
wherever it is you take me.

Be Good

We found the angel flitting into the sun porch windows like a desperate bug.

We locked it in and went for a walk.

The sun ignored us as we rifled through a stack of musty books 

propping up a FREE sign on the sidewalk.

I kept a couple mysteries. An atlas came apart in your hands.

When we returned home the angel was dead.

We placed it in a box and headed to the diner.

A ten minute wait to fill up on bread.

A busboy placed a thin vase of dried flowers on our table.

A man one booth over declined more coffee

by placing his hand over the top of his mug.

We left a crumpled tip and filed out. 

Each star was deaf to possibility.

The coroner would later cite a lack

of substance as the cause of death.

Even when pressed, he wouldn’t say which.

---

TED POWERS is the author of Please Light Up (Slope Editions, 2015). He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst MFA Program for Poets and Writers. He is a contributing editor for jubilat. He edits The Peach Basket: Poets on Basketball. More can be found at tedpowers.tumblr.com.