3 Poems//Alex Carrigan
I Can’t Save Myself for Better Times When I Only Have Seven Minutes
After Maureen Seaton
I have seven minutes to write something that will make you remember me long after I’m gone. To be the pain in your throat after you gasp. To be the name you just can’t quite remember. To be the Imogen Heap needle drop after a gunshot rings out. I know it’s not much, but I hope to find a way to linger while the clock ticks down second by second. Six minutes remain. The first poem I ever got recognition for was about ducks and aliens. I wrote it for an elementary school contest. It was the first and last time I’ve ever gotten away with metered rhyme in a poem. I don’t remember what I did with the poem or the certificate. They’re probably wasted away like all paper is after enough rain and wind touch them. Five minutes remain. I know you may think I’m lying about the time it takes to write this piece. Trust me, I’m actually quite a fast typer. I can really only type with three fingers though. My elementary school encouraged me to write about ducks and aliens, but never properly taught me how to type. I only need these fingers to make someone happy. Four minutes remain. But you probably don’t care about my fingers or my legacy of work or my references. You want to know if there’s going to be something impactful at the end of this piece. Something to make this poem worth the time it took for you to read it. To write one singular thought that may keep you up at night. Consider this: Kristen Johnston is more famous for one episode of Sex and the City than for all of Third Rock From the Sun. Three minutes remain. Honestly, I think I’ll let you down. You’ll read this poem and think I’m such a meta asshole. I’m not totally an asshole, even if I did use part of my time to rewrite that last sentence to best tell you about how I’m an asshole. Two minutes remain. And I used a whole minute to talk about assholes! Great. I know you probably don’t think I’m an asshole. Most people in my life don’t, as far as I know. Besides, I’ve decided this is the poem that will be read at my funeral. Never mind the Maureen Seaton poem I’d rather have read at it (Save Yourself for Better Times). This is the one I’ll ask my siblings to read, if they outlive me. One minute remaining. This is the second time I’ve been inspired by Maureen to write a poem in seven minutes and contemplate my life, my death, and what I’ll take with me in the end. Thirty seconds left now. I guess I won’t really have much to say in the end. Maybe you’ll think my other poems are better than this one. But you at least acknowledged me for seven minutes, and I think you just might mean more to me than I will to you. Time’s up.
I Couldn’t Remember the Name of the Patsy Cline Song
The minutes I sat in that basement bar,
unable to remember a beat of the song
felt longer than a cross-country flight.
No distinct lyrics came to mind,
only the vibrations of Patsy’s voice
against the surface of my drink.
How could I possibly forget that song?
I once cried trying to sing along with it
during an evening drive home.
How was it so easy to forget the
pain and longing in her voice,
to have it obscured by the scent of
cardamom bitters in my cocktail?
That pain should have lasted
longer than the alcohol buzz,
and yet I felt like a piece of paper
shredded by a jet turbine,
trying to put it all back together
before the breeze scattered it forever.
I’ll have to commit the song to memory,
play it on loop when I get the chance,
maybe get “Faded Love” tattooed somewhere
before I forget the moment of fear,
the desperation to think of any lyric,
and the concern that there was
anything else I could just as easily
forget in an instant.
Nape
I stopped cutting my hair when the touch of my barber’s hands on the back of my neck became too much for my boyhood self to bear. I still leave my neck bare, piling my hair on top of my head with stretched-out hairbands. I’m sure you’ve studied the moles on the back of my neck to see if any of them have teeth. You may find something off with them, and you’ll point them out with the tip of your ballpoint pen. It’s alright if you doodle a cartoon ghost back there as long as you don’t write “Kick Me” under it. I know you’re tempted to do both. Once you’re done, I’ll finally let my tresses spill over my neck, keeping our shared mark a secret. We’ll reveal it when you pull my hair to the side and kiss the back of my neck, and only then will I be glad it no longer hurts to be touched there.
Alex Carrigan (he/him) is a Pushcart-nominated editor, poet, and critic from Alexandria, VA. He is the author of Now Let’s Get Brunch (Querencia Press, 2023) and May All Our Pain Be Champagne (Alien Buddha Press, 2022). He has appeared in SoFloPoJo, Cotton Xenomorph, Bullshit Lit, HAD, fifth wheel press, and more. Visit carriganak.wordpress.com or follow him on Twitter @carriganak for more info.