Michelle Renee Hoppe
two poems from This Final Subtweet Is an Act of Love
Mormon Childhood in Six-Word Essays
Jared says he’s Super Gay. Flexes.
Rips fingernails with teeth. Breaks tooth.
Flowers always rot in our home.
Flowers hang dried, dead, on walls.
A coffin of brick and love.
Alice rejects Wonderland. Wonderland isn’t real.
Marie and I play orphan games.
Indiana Jones sleepovers. Adventurous soul hostage.
Nothing makes more freedom than abandonment.
And we run, screaming, in joy.
We make villains of our parents.
Hide illicit literature under our beds.
Little sister finds hidden books. Reads.
Devours secular complexity. Grows. Shrinks. Fears.
Mom won’t let her read Marquez.
Shamefully, as mom fears, I’m queer.
I deny LGBTQ; I want life.
Jared comes out furiously. Atheist. OUT.
I raise Jared. Tell him: escape.
Youth’s lost, love—a runaway forever.
Childhood games are adult reality. Remember.
(originally published in Prometheus Dreaming)
The Worst That Could Ever Happen Has Already Happened
Someone unhappy will surely say: Baaaaad things
Will happen if you leave. (The worst thing ever.)
Because this caverns in your youngest part, a dark
Unknowingness. Let me bring up coral sunsets: I guarantee
Bad will happen. Unexpectedly. Someone beloved will go
Without explanation. Someone may pick someone
Else. But set your wildest mangoes—fresh,
Rotten, or jammed—on kitchen tables, taking
Up more stomach than any celery, negativistic veggie.
Collect seeds and pits in blunted teeth before a cursed
Sticky sweetness stains all that primeval baby
Bite. Every tree gives eventually. There is bad
You choose. There is the bad that chooses you.