Seltzer and Synesthesia

Photo credit: Alfred Schrock, Unsplash

You know
The joke about
Flavored seltzer,
How it tastes like fruit
But doesn’t?
Not sweet, mind you,
Just wet.

Isn’t it the impression
Of the impression
Of the thing we’re after?
It fizzes!
Like if static
Emitted something like juice
And pissed on it
To water it down.

The seltzer verses –
You’ve seen them.
They can’t make jam.
The buzz of precision
But never a flesh to bite into
Either cold or hot.

Yet they’re the academic’s
Coffee-table dressing.
You know it –
It’s the aesthetic of
An uncracked book –
Faintly gloss-smelling pages
On a glass-top table.
Someone is proud of them.
That M.F.A. paid off.
Take your pick between that
And fairy-lights and logos
To find the state of art.

It’s OK –
Everything else is unacceptable.
I don’t claim to be better,
But I’ll admit –
Maybe I’m also
Belching stripped-down flavor
Line after line.
Poetry ain’t allowed to gush anymore.
You’d be better off snapping
A daguerreotype
Just for the journals!

Yes, I appreciate that you didn’t pose
Your subjects,
So unfortunately white,
That I can smell the stench of
Whatever you’re describing.
It’s hyper-real;
It’s more than fine.
It doesn’t make a mess
As it runs down the chin.

Besides, your insertion of these
/
Line breaks
After every two words
Makes me look vastly inferior.
But is it too antiquated to ask
For anything that flows?
No more janky line breaks
Reaming out
The middle of stanzas?

And also I know,
Trust me,
That love is what
Makes the world go round.
But I need to hear
More of what stops it.

Trauma, addiction,
What actually
Tortures poets,
Living in third-tier cities,
Disease/attention deficits,
Funeral expenses/ going inpatient.
Poverty.
Incarceration.
Autism/crime,
Autism itself as a crime.
Love, somewhere closer
To the end of the list.

It’s never the “bad” poems
That piss me off,
I find good in them, always.
They didn’t execute
But they close –
I swear to god
There’s always a couplet
Tucked away somewhere
Worth the squeeze.

Two to four lines of gold
Glitteringly fall to the end,
At last! At least –
The fruit on the bottom
Giving you something
Round and real

To bite into.

© Maggie McCombs 2024. All Rights Reserved.