UNO
Draw me something, she says.
I am vacant.
Write me a letter.
I have a hangnail.
Write me a poem, she pleads.
This I can do.
My Goldfish, I say,
buys tangerines like
tissues, and so he
has never had scurvy.
She takes a sip of something in a wine glass
and holds it behind her teeth for a moment.
Another, she says, this one about me.
Your wallpaper, I say,
suffers tinnitus like
sea glass, and so we
have to whisper subtext.
She stands up,
One minute, she says, I have to adjust the radon detector.
She returns and I take her hand from across the low table,
I want you to know, I say, that I intend to—
She cut me off.
I’m not up for this conversation.
Can we just discuss deists and play Uno like usual?
I sit quietly.
I reach for the Uno cards in the end table drawer.
I love you, I say.
I highly doubt that, she says.
We sit.
I deal.
Seven cards to each player,
though there is only two of us.
Uno is no fun with only two,
but I haven’t told her that yet.
I’m sorry, she says, and plays a plus four.
Another?
My brass buttons draw their
cartography with toads
and so we have no
more accurate coastlines.
—from 2018 Rattle Young Poets Anthology
__________
Why do you like to write poetry?
Rowan Brown: “I write poetry because it erases ego, and separation, and helps me to remember that I’m made of the same stuff as what’s all around me. I also happen to enjoy it.”
