Christina Olson

Tell me lies otherwise: you never drank
yourself clever at a bachelor party,
played pick-up soccer at 3 a.m.

against drag queens wearing pleather
green heels, didn’t use a white
van as the far goal or bought

a brunette a Czech beer
you couldn’t afford, never stole
anything from home before driving

off with a cooler full of turkey
leftovers, knowing one parent
would blame the other.

I tell you that stripped
of smell, female lobsters
molt on public ocean sand, die

for the want of chemical. It’s not
entirely true, but neither is this.
I have half a pack of menthols

hidden up in the rafters
of the neighbor’s porch, a good dress
that I love to leave on the bank

while we swim. Did you know
that gum in your stomach turns
hard as a pit and stays for fourteen

years? That I went to high school
with Marilyn Manson? Once
Andy Warhol patted your head in a deli—

okay, it was the Buffalo Sabres
goalie, it was your dog, a waiting
room. Still. Why let the truth ruin

everything. Hold a lie on the tongue
like first caviar, marvel
at the black salt. Tonight

never happened but I’ll miss it
anyway. The story of us begins
That night, before I came home naked,

I swam with a guy who sang
to lobsters, even knew their shoe size.

Posted 08/14/10

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