Two Poems by Ethan Mershon

the stars

at the drive-in we were playing with decades, not like playing with fire,
but with what fire leaves behind. but there, in that tan van, we three
sat in the trunk with the door flung open over our heads, and fire played with me,
i wanted to kiss both of the girls i was with, although one had a long-distance boyfriend,
and the other was so christian it made my teeth hurt. i didn’t want a beer
i wanted eight beers and to turn back the clock. business as usual.
when the movie ended the christian girl drove us back to Grand Rapids
along a highway with no other cars on it. then she turned off the headlights.
we couldn’t see the road in front of us. we were alone in the world.
i was going to tell her to stop being crazy, to turn the lights back on,
suddenly i had a lot to live for, but then i looked out my window
and there they were.

*

seeker

i am standing in the back of a small church in Wichita,
son of a pastor, lapsed worship leader, holding
a styrofoam cup of coffee with the steam rising up
like i do when i go my anonymous meetings, and
the congregation is singing Amazing Grace, which
i haven’t heard in five years, which i once sung for
the inauguration of the president of my university,
who i didn’t like. the sum of the congregation’s voices
fills the chapel, pressing up against the stained glass
windows and the bread and grape juice at the front,
music getting in the body and the blood like a virus
or a crush, and i remember when me and my sisters
would sneak the communion bread away from the altar
after the service and eat it in the parking lot, children
who were so blessed they didn’t know they were blessed,
and as the song ends i feel like i should be crying,
but i’m not, i sit down among all these people i don’t
want to be friends with, and hope they have found
what they are looking for, because i will have to look
again.

*

Ethan Mershon is a poet living in Wichita, Kansas. His work has appeared in: Meridian, Fourth River, The Paris-American, and other journals.