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Hate Poem

Julia Sheehan

I hate you. Truly I do.

Everything about me hates everything about you.

The flick of my wrist hates you.

The way I hold my pencil hates you.

The sound made by my tiniest bones were they trapped

in the jaws of a moray eel hates you.

Each corpuscle singing in its capillary hates you.

Look out! Fore! I hate you.

The blue-green jewel of sock lint I'm digging

from under my third toenail, left foot, hates you.

The history of this keychain hates you.

My sigh in the background as you explain relational databases

hates you.

The goldfish of my genius hates you.

My aorta hates you. Also my ancestors.

A closed window is both a closed window and an obvious

symbol of how I hate you.

My voice curt as a hairshirt: hate.

My hesitation when you invite me for a drive: hate.

My pleasant "good morning": hate.

You know how when I'm sleepy I nuzzle my head

under your arm? Hate.

The whites of my target-eyes articulate hate. My wit

practices it.

My breasts relaxing in their holster from morning

to night hate you.

Layers of hate, a parfait.

Hours after our latest row, brandishing the sharp glee of hate,

I dissect you cell by cell, so that I might hate each one

individually and at leisure.

My lungs, duplicitous twins, expand with the utter validity

of my hate, which can never have enough of you,

Breathlessly, like two idealists in a broken submarine.

from PLEIADES, vol. 24:2

Central Missouri State Press

Love

Martha Silano

with apologies to Julie Sheehan

I hate your kneecaps floating free

in their salty baths. I hate your knees,

both of them, and I hate your eyelashes,

especially the ones that fall out, the ones

you're supposed to wish on; I wish you

bad wishes. I hate every hair

on your hairy face, hate you as much

as I hate being put on hold,

thank you for your patience

when I have none, when patience

is as far away as my first grade teacher's

if you have nothing nice to say. . .

Your mushroom risotto: hate it.

The salmon you're defrosting: hate.

My vowels hate you.

My adverbs hate you. The backyard

hates you--the backyard with all its abandoned

dump trucks, with the giant hole our son dug

all summer while soaker hoses soaked. That hole

and all holes, including the hole in the ozone,

which of course keeps getting bigger.

Spaghetti wrapping around a fork.

Mashed spinach and carrots caught

in the rungs of a high chair, stuck

to the floor like dried green paint: hate,

hate, hate. Each furry rabbit a little furry ball

of hate. Each blackberry a messy drupe of drippy hate.

At the China Palace the plates piled high with Mu Shu

Hate, the plates now a busboy's burden of hate,

the only sound the dumpster's clanging hate hate hate.

from The Cincinnati Review