Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.
Paris Poem Without Clichés
by Megan Fernandes
There are two sides to every story, except this one.
We’re no longer babes in the forest with an axe to grind.
We’re so behind the times, we blow gaskets,
we pick bones to break the ice. Crazy as a loon,
we cry the river together, cut a rug
around the killed cat who needed to die, I guess,
for wanting to know more. We got your knickers
in a twist and dropped like flies. As beautiful
as the day is light, which is not so long. Give or take
ten summer hours. We went dutch at dinner
and rose early to eat worms. There was a lone swan
stranded in the canal, swimming in stupid circles,
searching for her better half who abandoned ship.
She had an orange mouth. Absence makes a heart
of thorns. Someone chucked trash in the
green-with-envy waters, so close to her feathers
she panicked to keep herself preened, pristine, in case
her faint heart got lost in the shuffle, again.
What do you want. It was Paris and full of grief.
A last hurrah. A lost cause. A Lord willing.
I’d beg to differ. I wasn’t born yesterday.
Copyright © 2023 by Megan Fernandes. This poem was originally published in her book, I DO EVERYTHING I’M TOLD (Tin House Books, Summer 2023.)
About the Author
Megan Fernandes is a poet living in NYC. She has been published in The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, among many others.
Queer Poem a Day: Lineage Edition
- 1: Richie Hoffman
- 2: Derrick Austin
- 3: Maggie Millner
- 4: Rachel Mennies
- 5: Armen Davoudian
- 6: Tara Skurtu
- 7: K. Iver
- 8: Chen Chen
- 9: Alicia Mountain
- 10: Jameson Fitzpatrick
- 11: Randall Mann
- 12: Megan Fernandes
- 13: Amanda Gunn
- 14: Composer Robert Savage and John Ashbery
Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and teacher Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this third year of our series is the AIDS Ward Scherzo by Robert Savage, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by generous donations from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission.
