These five poems by Katy Luxem center on modern, everyday life, focusing on the chaos of parenthood and marriage amid an increasingly political and volatile world…
by: Katy Luxem
Old Guard
“I do not tolerate junk. But I love treasures.”
-Jenny Slate
I am always on the lookout for joy
wherever I can find it. So I don’t mind
Happy Meal toys, old geode
-shaped plates, antique things
with no modern purpose.
To be a collector means
not only am I holding on
to what I love, but noticing
what else might fill my longing.
How can I explain it?
Look how beautiful the mountain is
even as it blocks the sky.
When My Child’s School Emails with Potentially Credible Threats of Gun Violence
I understand Rapunzel’s tower, every bomb shelter
carved out of Midwestern dirt, the Great Wall, higher
than the canned food my grandparents kept for decades
in their garage. I would swallow every key to the locks
keeping them safe, use my body as a shield, an airbag,
be the red balloon raising their spirits to an imaginary god.
The worst might happen. Like ammo in a bunker,
I have stockpiled my love, packed it in lunches, and sent it with texts.
I have wiped it into clean shirts, and I wonder why
this cannot be enough? I will have to gnaw my arm out
of the steel trap this country has set. America, America,
America, I will use your imagination against you now.
I have given myself
A B12 vitamin, vaguely orange and flecked earthen
once a week, if I remember, some grace, a time
limit on scrolling, a screen protector thick as steak,
the opportunity to, perhaps, get back up
on a metaphorical horse, the sheen of her
mane glistening, a rough bang trim, full garbage
sack of clothes culled from my closet, dinner out,
every line of a poem written over and over
an experience, a tasseled lampshade, a few seconds
to notice the photo taped to the wall, how we looked
at each other before the lights went out.
Invitation
I am the worst, the worst
at ignoring little conditions.
I have pulled over to lift a box
turtle to safety from the hot asphalt.
I collect dishes at restaurant tables
into neat little piles
so they’ll be easier for someone
to clear. I have tidied up
bathroom stalls that I did not use
so no one thinks worse of me.
It takes so much effort
to live, and not very much
at all to do one, small action.
The older I get, the more I see
the world as a giant parking lot
of abandoned shopping carts
in the rain. Why not leave things
just a little bit better
than we find them?
The Constitution Specifies the Exact Moment
A new president’s term begins. But he’s not really
new, is he? I’m thinking of kings and shahs, the old
guard and popes, emperors and despots. Turns out
there have been more racist, sexist idiots than not
when it comes to rulers in power. So I’m waiting
in a clearing, a long way from here. It is dark and
I know we’ve all taken field trips to a capitol, maybe
seen statue horses with wild eyes, domes, framed
documents, folded flags. All that pomp and
circumstance we are taught to admire fades.
I am hoping for short histories now, time closing in,
the multiverse. And in every reality I pledge
allegiance only to the thinnest hope, and mainly
to the woman after my own heart.
Katy Luxem lives in Salt Lake City. She is a graduate of the University of Washington and has a master’s degree from the University of Utah. Her work has appeared in Rattle, McSweeney’s, SWWIM Every Day, Rust & Moth, One Art, Poetry Online, and others. She is the author of Until It Is True (Kelsay Books, 2023).
