Poems by Andrea Gibson:
Maybe I Need You
The winter I told you I think icicles are magic,
you stole an enormous icicle from a neighbors shingle
and gave it to me as a gift
I kept it in my freezer for seven months
until the day I hurt my foot
and needed something to reduce the swelling
Love isn’t always magic
sometimes it’s just melting
or it’s black and blue
where it hurts the most
Last night I saw your ghost
pedaling a bicycle with a basket
towards a moon as full as my heavy head
and I wanted nothing more than to be sitting in that basket
like ET with my glowing heart glowing right through my chest
and my glowing finger pointing in the direction of our home
Two years ago I said I never want to write our break up poem;
you built me a time capsule full of big league chew
and promised to never burst my bubble
I loved you from our first date at the batting cages
when I missed 23 balls in a row
and you looked at me
like I was a home run in the ninth inning of the world series
Now every time I hear the word, ‘love’, I think going, going…
The first week you were gone,
I kept seeing your hand wave goodbye
like a windshield wiper in a flooding car
in the last real moment I believed the hurricane would let me out alive
Yesterday I carved your name into the surface of an ice cube
then held it against my chest ‘til it melted into my aching pores
Today I cried so hard the neighbors knocked on my door
and asked if I wanted to borrow some sugar
I told them I left my sweet tooth in your belly button
Love isn’t always magic
but if I offered my life to the magician
if I told her to cut me in half
So tonight I could come to you whole
and ask for you back
would you listen
for this dark alley love song
For the winter we heated our home from the steam off our own bodies?
I wrote you too many poems in a language I did not yet know how to speak
But I know now it doesn’t matter how well I say grace
if I am sitting at a table where I am offering no bread to eat
So this is my wheat field;
you can have every acre, Love
This is my garden song
This is my fist fight
with that bitter frost
Tonight I begged another stage light to become that back alley street lamp that we danced beneath
the night your warm mouth fell on my timid cheek
as I sang, maybe I need you
off key
but in tune
Maybe I need you the way that big moon needs that open sea
Maybe I didn’t even know was here ‘til I saw you holding me
Give me one room to come home to
give me the palm of your hand
Every strand of my hair is a kite string
and I have been blue in the face with your sky
crying a flood over Iowa so your mother can wake to Venice
Lover, I smashed my glass slipper to build a stained glass window for every wall inside my chest
Now my heart is a pressed flower and a tattered Bible
It is the one verse you can trust
So I’m putting all of my words in your collection plate
I am setting the table with bread and grace
My knees are bent
like the corner of a page
I am saving your place
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Asking Too Much
I want you to tell me about every person you’ve ever been in love with
Tell me why you loved them,
then tell me why they loved you
Tell me about a day in your life you didn’t think you’d live through
Tell me what the word “home” means to you
And tell me in a way that I’ll know your mothers name
just by the way you describe your bedroom when you were 8
See, I wanna know the first time you felt the weight of hate
And if that day still trembles beneath your bones
Do you prefer to play in puddles of rain
or bounce in the bellies of snow?
And if you were to build a snowman, would you rip two branches from a tree
to build your snowman arms?
Or would you leave the snowman armless for the sake of being harmless to the tree?
And if you would, would you notice how that tree weeps for you
because your snowman has no arms to hug you every time you kiss him on the cheek?
Do you kiss your friends on the cheek?
Do you sleep beside them when they’re sad,
even if it makes your lover mad?
Do you think that anger is a sincere emotion
or just the timid motion of a fragile heart trying to beat away its pain?
See, I wanna know what you think of your first name
And if you often lie awake at night and imagine your mothers joy when she spoke it for the very first time
I want you tell me all the ways you’ve been unkind.
Tell me all the ways you’ve been cruel.
Tell me—knowing I often picture Gandhi at ten years old beating up little boys at school.
If you were walking by a chemical plant, where smoke stacks
were filling the sky with dark, black clouds, would you holler, “Poison! Poison! Poison!” really loud or would whisper,
“That cloud looks like a fish, and that cloud looks like a fairy”?
Do you believe that Mary was really a virgin?
Do you believe that Moses really parted the sea?
And if you don’t believe in miracles,
tell me, how would you explain the miracle of my life to me?
See, I wanna know if you believe in any god,
or if you believe in many gods.
Or better yet, what gods believe in you.
And for all the times you’ve knelt before the temple of yourself, have the prayers you’ve asked come true?
And if they didn’t did you feel denied?
And if you felt denied, denied by who?
I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror on a day you’re feeling good
I wanna know what you see in the mirror on a day a day you’re feeling bad
I wanna know the first person who ever taught you your beauty could ever be reflected on a lousy piece of glass
If you ever reach enlightenment, will you remember how to laugh?
Have you ever been a song?
Would you think less of me if I told you I have lived my entire life a little off key
and I’m not nearly as smart as my poetry
I just plagiarized the thoughts of the people around me who have learned the wisdom of silence
Do you believe that concrete perpetuates violence?
And if you do I want you to tell me of a meadow where my skateboard will soar.
See, I wanna know more than what you do for a living
I wanna know how much of your life you spend just giving.
And if you love yourself enough to also receive sometimes.
I wanna know if you bleed sometimes through other people’s wounds
And if you dream sometimes that this life is just a balloon
that if you wanted to you could pop—but you never would because you’d never want it to stop
If a tree fell in the forest, and you were the only one there to hear it,
if its fall to the ground didn’t make a sound, would you panic in fear that you didn’t exist
or would you bask in the bliss of your nothingness?
And lastly, let me ask you this:
if you and I went for a walk, and the entire walk we didn’t talk,
do you think eventually we’d kiss?
No way.
That’s asking too much
—after all, this is only our first date.
