On Being Mean
A man walks up to me at the gas station air pump
and tries to explain how to use the machine. I understand
how to use the machine. When he won’t take the hint
I get back in my car and he shouts, I don’t want to hurt
you! I’m just trying to help! And that’s when I get the urge
to lean out the window and smile I’m just a mean
person! Right, don’t I remember your voice from last year
calling to tell me the same? Or was it my mother’s
laughter, saying zippy, zingy, feisty—little tap-
dancey words, maraschinos? Oh man, by now I know
the artistry of Mean, its well-lit pastry case
haloing flavors: blistering pineapple, thoughtless
plum… Rich beyond measure were the egg yolks
plashing the windshield of that new Subaru. I once
stole back a birthday gift, a mounted painting, and stayed
thirsty for that urge days later. Were you not
in the car when A. read us his poem about the body
in his backseat, dying, white hair loosing
from that figure which must have been his grandfather
but turned out to be the treasured family dog? O,
how the rest of us laughed! Like shards of hard candy
shooting out of the sunroof and into the mouth
of the moon. The moon is kind because she eats this
kind of laughter, fashions it into an ambergris
waxed with sleek window cats and tulle-purple dusks, an average
she used to perfume the crags of the quiet stadium
we parked beside. But now, I only want to cross
the highway of that memory to touch the dark
noses of the cows that grazed there—sweet and sad
beneath the moon’s blue spit. Why can I only
see them now with their faces to the earth, how the pulses
of their breath ask a question the grass still refuses?
Olivia Sokolowski
On Being Mean
Olivia M. Sokolowski is a poet currently pursuing her PhD at Florida State University. She earned her MFA at University of North Carolina Wilmington and her undergraduate degree at Berry College. Her work is recently featured or forthcoming in Lake Effect, Tupelo Quarterly, Gulf Coast, and Nelle. You can also find Olivia streaming at twitch.tv/clockwork_olive.
