Two Poems by Jon Wesick

A Postindustrial Romance

 

…we live in a society that is both competitive and in which we are incessantly evaluated (school, university, performance as writer, poet or businessman or sportsman). The only place where you hope to stop that evaluation is in love.

                                                                                              Eva Illouz

 

 

Donna married my paycheck

on an unseasonably warm autumn day.

Bridesmaids in antebellum gowns fanned themselves

and congratulated her on her good catch.

I still have the postcard she sent

from their honeymoon in New Zealand.

 

I wanted them to be happy.

Even when pricing helium futures

at the zeppelin factory,

I’d set down my slide rule

and imagine her moaning with pleasure,

my paycheck between her thighs.

 

When the downsizing began,

she sat at my paycheck’s bedside

holding its hand     telling it not to give up.

At the funeral pallbearers had to restrain her.

In her grief she began to live for her job

staying at the office long after dark

and subsisting on frozen dinners.

 

To console her I explained that in today’s economy

love depends on the trade balance with China

as well as myriad decisions by executives

in large corporations.     Now she’s dating again.

If you’re interested, forward your resume

along with a copy of your tax return.

 

 

 

Monica Wanted to Be 2-D

 

She was okay as a centerfold.

Then she put on blue eye shadow and heels,

became a Cosmo cover.

 

I wanted to wrap her around books

art, philosophy, anything to add depth

but she became a crayon drawing

of a house and baby

yellow sun

lollipop trees.

 

I folded her into a paper airplane

and launched her into the sky.

She fluttered back as a credit card bill.

 

I took up origami

practiced cranes, butterflies, and elephants.

She countered with liquor ads and romance novels.

 

I thought a Mobius strip would satisfy both of us

but her feminist language critique cut my tongue

when I licked its adhesive edges.

 

Finally, she became a page from The Rules,

slipped under my door,

and skipped

away

pursued by the wind.

 

 

Host of the Gelato Poetry Series, instigator of the San Diego Poetry Un-Slam, and an editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual, Jon Wesick has published nearly three hundred poems in journals such as the Atlanta Review, Pearl, and Slipstream. He has also published over seventy short stories. Jon has a Ph.D. in physics and is a longtime student of Buddhism and the martial arts. One of his poems won second place in the 2007 African American Writers and Artists contest.