mason wray / poem

The Poem Relives My 20s So I Don't Have To

The blitzed poem bursts

bee hives on trains, opens windows

so it rains into banging 

roommates’ rooms. On Tuesdays, 

a diner serves the poem discount stew. 

The poem quarters its heart

like a questionable egg, fishing 

like the diner for humans

hungry enough. It hopes 

to end somewhere better 

than it’s beginning. It’s giving

pretty unsure. The poem quits 

whining & worships

lemon gelato, smokes 

out Kristen Stewart’s 

cousin in a water park. 

It doesn’t get into Berghain. 

The poem labors to become 

less unbecoming, buys cookbooks

on tape, finally generous 

with Rogaine. Occasionally 

the poem stumbles 

like a doomed race horse 

into the arms 

of another horse. 

It writes itself 

poems thinking this 

will save it, doesn’t realize

an ending is any moment 

too tired to go on.

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Mason Wray is a Georgia poet and a graduate of the MFA program at Ole Miss. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, New Ohio Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Diode, and others. A poetry editor at Bear Review, he lives in Atlanta.