Midsummer XXXII
Glen Armstrong
We could dress up in gowns
And get married
Dress up in wings and commune
With owls
Undress Bathe and towel off
In the midday sun
We could straighten our ties
And crunch numbers
Until five o’clock
Then come home to drink
Martinis and crunch
Colors and shapes until it’s time
To once again start crunching
Each other between the sheets
We could dress up as January
February Canary and April
We could take a vacation
And stay in a castle
We could dress as the floor
That Julia’s nightgown replaces
The empty room through which a single bodily hair
Has its say
We could dress as fingers or legs
And run
Through the carefully
Reconstructed ruins
Looking for hands or torsos
To hold us.
Requiem for Milton Bradley
Glen Armstrong
It’s easier to let December
remember for us.
It’s easier to let the television be.
It’s cold this evening,
and each of the plastic pines
slows its otherworldly heartbeat.
In our churches and our shopping malls,
with our children and what’s left of our parents,
we raise our voices from the white,
woolen blanket that customarily smothers song.
We embrace defeat.
Not that it’s easy, mind you.
It’s just easier to roll the dice
with our pockets turned out
and our shoelaces broken.
The unspeakable can be sung.
The little ones can intuit the rules
of games that will do them in:
wooden soldiers, Mystery Date.
At this late hour, let us fail.
Remember the sticky side of the tape,
the scraping sound that cardboard makes,
the second verse of the hymn.

GLEN ARMSTRONG is a Detroit-area poet and musician. He teaches at Oakland University and co-edits Cruel Garters.