KNOT Magazine
Fall Issue 2022
Michael T. Smith
This poem will hit on you
This poem will hit on you,
send an ebonite word to
wink and *smack* -- into your
lips, only to bounce back
to me, snuggling closely.
To be “being,” this poem
will hit on you with a kindness:
It’s its Fach --
stumbling back into
flirtatious reveries like oceanic tides.
It’s rafty (cold or bleak); it is
most writings you see
today. And if beauty of words
could make you come…
to your senses, then --
Then this poem will hit on you--
you, who is not me.
Why would you keep yourself
away from everyone –
the everyman, the other other?
It will hit on you
when your bodice takes flight,
from off your body running,
when your body croons
erected.
And I scribble down a mantra
so profound,
but unfortunately one I can’t read
the next morning -- but I will ask you
what it means.
This poem will hit on you,
But -- but it won’t tell you what it wants.
It’d rather look at you through a prism
to see you in dots,
and use this broken image to --you know.
He Said, She Said:
A Conversation in a 98 Jeep
He said:
“You can come in,
but you have to replace what you break.”
She said:
“The outside just seems dreary now,
and not because of the weather.”
He said:
“Stop nagging me
about all things that are right.”
She said:
“Our bitterness is just an etude
to showcase our talents.”
He said:
“Honey, don’t --
honeyfuggle me into another agreement.”
She said:
“If this is home, why don’t we
have keys to the door anymore?”
He said:
“You left yourself in the motorcade
as you were going away.”
She said:
“I’m broken down,
which seems like a paean to the status quo.”
He said:
“It’s just a traffic jam
that makes you think that way.”
Walk Away, Walk Away
I thought he watched me walk away,
ending meaning in a line,
and only found meaning in the
movement
of these (hips --
just like only finding meaning in said line)
breaks.
It was his one failing
Among all the others…
Else
I made a vow never to get old.
I made an ode
that never did I deserve
to die.
My soul is still in high school,
fighting to hold back its girth.
I never had a meaning for breathing
until your lips gave birth.
Meanwhile, my narrative –
like a ditzy fly,
buzzing around this loft of my mind,
never wakes up; never will rise.
Now, I'm scrubbing the house
with a suds of sympathy
to get the varnish of splinters
off our happy floor.
I asked the world to join me,
but I sit here in silent syncope --
I would not chaffer.
I would get excited
with vines up my arms.
But your feet made such rude remarks
to the wait-staff.
Michael T. Smith is an Assistant Professor of English who teaches both writing and film courses. He has published over 150 pieces (poetry and prose) in over 80 different journals. He loves to travel.