A Poem by Mat Wenzel

Author: Poetry Editor

April 11, 2019

This week, a poem by Mat Wenzel.

To the Person I Was Then, Living in Someone Else’s House

For a while, I think that maybe just my presence in this house might have capital:
my sulking across the sunshined wood floors, my whimpering in the shower before she
knocked, the clack of my ill-seasoned footwear by the jingling winter door, or perhaps,

that a certain level of strangeness might have aesthetic value, like green leather couches
constantly sliding around by the great glass gate, the sky rising behind a hot air balloon,
a pop song dropped in on the kitchen playlist, an unnatural hair color to match her sons’.

Every dish in this house is washed and put up now. Outside, the glitter of snow, shoveled,
is gas metallic. I hide myself in thermal layers, waxed canvas, someone else’s boots,
manual labor. I close my eyes. I slow my breath. I lie down on the ice to sleep. I know

you can hear me, Rural Traffic Accident. Go back inside and burn yourself on the lip of hot drink.
Forget the commodity of your desire, your particular hurt, your particular moon.
Sit down with me and tell me your thoughts, son. We all of us will become motherless.

——

MAT WENZEL is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at Florida State University. Mat’s work has appeared in Crab Fat Magazine, Carve, Puerto del Sol, Glitterwolf Magazine, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, and other journals and zines. Mat is a Lambda Literary Fellow (2015).