Heather June Gibbons

Let's Pretend

Let’s pretend this is the best song ever
crank it up and pretend we’re tourists
in shorts with maps, and in love
 
let’s pretend that kiss was an accident
blame it on boozy excitement
let’s pretend we’re Italian and stroll
 
la passeggiata on the Via del Corso
let’s pretend my cousin in Idaho
doesn’t have guns plural, pretend
 
we’re in labor and push, pretend
the alert wasn’t amber and the lost
child was found alive and safe
 
hiding under her bed, pretending
let’s pretend we’re rich and thin
and slouch laconically on a balcony
 
let’s pretend our ears don’t burn
nod yes with a mouthful of rare beef
dab tears of contentment, pretend
 
we are a happy family of four
and it’s bath time, then bedtime
read a story about ourselves
 
as rabbits and squirrels who live
in thatched-roof cottages with
secret passageways, let’s pretend
 
our secrets make us interesting
let’s pretend we don’t remember
let’s pretend we remember everything
 
what’s that smell?  It wasn’t us
the error module does not recognize
the error, let’s pretend we are
 
who we say we are, that we wave
at mayors in parades and always
call back our moms, this works best
 
when we’re unbearably sad
this isn’t fun anymore
so what, pretend that it is
 
and that we understand Twitter
and tailgating and love ourselves
even half as much as we should
 
let’s pretend that pretending is
different than lying and we
don’t see a black Mercedes
 
circling the block and this
waterfall is not powered
by electricity, we are not
 
powered by electricity,
pretend this dead-end is
not the real-deal end.

---

Anthem

Every pop song is just another song
about California, the waves, yeah
the waves, kids in the boom-boom
room shaking ass in the smoke
 
machine smoke like they’re dancing
in a gold cage, dudes singing along
and bobbing their heads in midlife
crisis cars like they’re all alone
 
in traffic, blonde girls bouncing
on dorm room beds vogueing
a looping dumbshow on Vine
for faraway boys with lathery
 
torsos, and the chorus goes
hi-lo blowpop shuga-shuga shake--
every club song is lonely, is a song
about longing generally, every
 
song about California dreaming
is sad the way a Solo cup rolling
on its side under a palm tree is
and neon blinking Palms Read Here
 
is just another way to say take me
to the bridge, let that big 4/4
box store beat build to the bridge
which always takes you back
 
to the same chorus, surge of blood
away, away from the brain,
let me come back to beats like
little boxes where I can have all
 
the big feelings, me, always
with the big, stupid feelings,
and the kids jumping on beds
in a scream-along, they have
 
all the feelings, and boys with
the spins holding their heads,
they have all the feelings, flare
guns shooting off for anyone,
 
anonymous, interchangeable
as bodies on the dance floor,
predictable as let’s stay for
just one more as though
 
that would ever be enough,
we’ll never have to come down
to the verse, that old story,
so much explaining, just
 
let the beat drop and the vocoder
vocals soar, dance so close
to the speaker the bass hurts
our kidneys, so loud we can’t
 
even hear what the singer
is saying, like you only
live once doesn’t also
mean that you are dying.

---

Sore Song

Hey you, tune in that sonar.  Come on down here
with your fanged kiss, bow rosined and held aloft,
 
ascot crooked but rakishly so.  How I’ve missed
scanning the horizon for you, wary of parallax--
 
decadent, the way it screws with the curves. 
I need your thumbprint on me in glitter or in ash. 
 
I looked for you in bulk bins of star anise,
in the creases of bus seats, in strange twangs
 
and interstate clovers, mistook you for other
pangs and baubles, and lay awhile panting
 
in your shadow, laid wait in stairwells
and in the body’s many clefts, whispered
 
for you, parched, once thought I saw you
through a guitar pick’s tortoiseshell, once
 
caught a glimpse of the hem of your robe. 
I sensed you with my high-powered sensor.
 
I orbited you, I probed.  And now I see your
massive eye blink against the bars of the cage
 
as my vessel pulls closer, risking burn up for data.




--
Heather June Gibbons is the author of the chapbook Flyover (Q Ave Press, 2012), and her poems have appeared widely in literary journals, including Blackbird, Boston Review, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, jubilat, The Laurel Review, and West Branch. A graduate of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she has received fellowships and awards from the Vermont Studio Center, the Prague Summer Program, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Heather teaches creative writing at San Francisco State University.