sean thomas dougherty / two poems

GS with Three Fragments by Erika Meitner

I’d like to mention Orpheus again at the drive

Thru as I was ordering a quarter pounder, thru 

The drive we drove high & with a stolen blow-up Nativity 

Scene we jacked from a neighbor’s lawn. The order says 

Nothing about a plain Quarter Pounder the 

Girl at the pick-up window said, & when I said the sign 

On her head was glowing like a movie screen, she said next 

But also thank you & good luck as we drove to 

Another drive thru down the road, high & with country on the 

Radio yelling some red neck anthem. At Arbys 

You changed your order over & over & on 

& on like a piece of art, till we ended up North 

Of the pier by the refinery, pockets full of Franklin 

From all the overtime we worked at Walmart 

Stocking shelves with Tonka Trucks & Brussell Sprouts. I 

Look at you trying to turn the station, recall how we kissed 

That first night after playing pool, pressed against the 

Aluminum siding of that tenement flat, & the sounds 

I heard inside my chest when you became a body of 

Muscle & maize, wheat & chaff, the 

Opening ding of a cash register 

Full of rubies, sapphires, the flow of the 

Body more than music—what high pitch registers 

In the brain is the miraculous that we kissed 

Or even thought our mouths could meet that me 

& you could matter, mate the way your 

Body blooms with orange blossom light—orange as the jumpsuit 

The prisoners wore picking trash we passed, of 

All the weed & the pills & books, & the body’s distress 

Smells like Sheetz where you spilled the creamer all over your 

Shirt the tight one with the obscene letters, where you donned the mask 

Of the psycho leprechaun & said to the cashier of 

Sandwiches & gas, this is a stickup, hand over your sadness.

---

GS of Lorca’s “Unmarried Woman at Mass”

What rumors of your demise hid beneath 

The faces of the insomniacs, the 

Ones who thought they were Moses 

On the mountain, Christs of 

Loisaida, Santeria incense 

Smoke in the backroom where drowsing 

Junkies grabbed the bull’s 

Horns & blew semen right into the eyes 

Of the cross-eyed Johns, who stare 

& stare without blinking at 

The mask of the boy’s groans—not you 

Who climbed out of the fire escape, your 

Bangles & on your neck a green rosary 

From your abuela, that summer of rains 

& weeping, that long hot summer in 

Loisaida when for a tied balloon that 

Boy tried to sell you a wedding dress 

He said was from his dead finance of

The East River. Nothing could be that profound 

You said, & besides it was made of silk 

By a cheap tailor in Chinatown. Don’t 

Move the boy said, muevas

The boy said, & you lit a Virginia 

Slim, sliced him good his blood an offer 

To Avenue B, & the santera cast the 

Spell you rubbed the black 

Beads you bought. You sliced the melon 

Of the boy’s face with the sharp edge of 

Debts no babalorisha could collect. Your

Hands shaky, your small breasts 

Uncovered in the heat. There was a mathematics to 

An ambulance we never called, the 

Addition we could not comprehend. Rumor 

Grew of you robbing those undercover cops of 

Your legend rising even after your mother saw the 

Priest & asked him to say your name at mass.

---

Sean Thomas Dougherty's most recent book is Death Prefers the Minor Keys from BOA Editions. His book The Second O of Sorrow from BOA was co-winner of the Paterson Prize. Born in NYC, he works as a Medtech and Carer for folks with traumatic brain injuries in Erie, PA.