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      January 24, 2013Jackleen HoltonGod Knows I Want to Be Good

      That’s why last year I went out with Michael
      who drove a white Prius
      and wore beige vegetarian shoes. And when
      we’d meet at a tofu bistro the same distance
      from both of our houses, we’d go dutch because
      we knew the importance of sexual equality. We had good
      conversations, talked about dwindling
      rainforests and fragile ecosystems. We liked
      the same movies and poems.
      God knows I want to be good, so I tried
      to ignore that boorish guy Mark at the party who bragged
      that he once caught a trout with his bare hands. I mean,
      what an asshole, what a hairy-chest-beating
      Neanderthal. So why did I let him
      pull me into the bathroom, shove those
      fish-snatching hands under my shirt?
      The other day, a friend told me that Michael’s
      engaged. I said good, good for him,
      and nodded my head like a chicken. As for Mark,
      it’s been a whole week since the night I groped
      around on his bedroom floor in search
      of my underwear. Tonight, I lie
      by the window, my body still
      humming like a long dial tone
      in the dark.

      from #37 - Summer 2012

      Jackleen Holton

      “I write poetry to make sense of things, and for those brief glimpses of the divine in the ordinary, but mostly because my childhood dream of being a lounge singer didn’t pan out.”