#124: Two Poems by Mark Jay Brewin, Jr.

~This poem was previously published in The Los Angeles Review (2010).

From These Split Ends

            -for Jessica Keough

After I proposed marriage, we decided

to start cutting each other’s hair.

First time, I was drunk on vodka tonics

and used poultry shears, but she trusted me

enough to score off a few inches.

We did it standing in the apartment’s

old cast iron tub, naked, my hands trembling.

Her curls made it difficult. The blades

didn’t trim right, and I strained to snip each lock.

While inspecting the workmanship,

I dropped the shears, nicked her ankle.

I forget how exactly she reacted, but it was calm—

something of a soft glance down.

As I palmed the clutch of her strands,

worried over the neat horizon of hair,

her manner suggested to me, There is time

to get better. I planted the split ends in the wastebasket

and knew we’d both grow from this.

*****

~This poem was previously published in West Branch (2011).

Marriage

I think there is hope for us

if we make our home

into an aviary and fill it

with Magnolia warblers,

wake to the rustle of feathers

like book pages in the wind.

I can pull the screen

from our storm door and tack

chicken wire in its place,

while you crack and scatter

shells of sunflower hears,

spread millet and thistle—

we can make it a ritual,

patching and spreading—

and every nightfall we’ll kneel

and replace the newspaper

that cover our hardwood floor.

If we keep larks and flycatchers

in the den, there’s a chance

we’ll cast away any mark

of trouble. Wader nests will line

the staircase like perches

in a flight coop. The thrum

of fresh water from the faucets

will make birdbaths of sink.

When we uncover their routines—

frail starlings and house wrens—

we’ll hold watch in turn,

be the first figures each chick

sees through gummy pupils.

Each Spring swop old scrape

for new, sift through duff

of our yard, harvest fallen limbs

and dropped oak leaves

the size of ball mitts.  Once

the undergrowth is carried back

to our bedroom, we’ll curl

and fetter boughs around our bed,

gather in the billow of down.

Our flock will fly south

for the winter, return when weather

gives the first hint of paradise,

but I’ll never parry from you

unless you teach me how. I’ll forgo

the clutch outside of our cage

and sing for nothing else.

Forget the gravity of words, the work

it takes for an egg to hatch. 

*****

THE STORY BEHIND THE POEMS

On “Marriage”: I had the incredible privilege of having Judy Jordan as a mentor while I attended Southern Illinois University Carbondale for my graduate studies. Besides constantly swearing to her students that good poetry takes dozens of hours of crafting, she also spoke often, and highly, about how important it is for good writers to keep birds and tree guides on their desks. So, of course, when I heard this on the first day of her class I knew that on my way home I was going to run out and pick one of each up. A few weeks later, unable to think about what to write, I started perusing the bird guide and just fell in love with the different names, the sounds and look. Around that time, too, a month before, I had asked my wife to marry me and was very much thinking about what it takes to have a successful, wonderful relationship. The ideas quickly came together and this poem hatched.

*****

ABOUT MARK JAY BREWIN, JR.

Mark Jay Brewin, Jr., won the 2012 Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry of the University of Utah Press for his first book manuscript, Scrap Iron. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Antioch Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Hollins Critic, Copper Nickel, Southern Humanities Review, Poet Lore, North American Review, Greensboro Review, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. He is a graduate of the MFA program of Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. You can find more of his work at: https://markjaybrewinjr.com.