BILL HOLLANDS
ICYMI: One-Sentence Summaries of My Recent Poems
I’m gay and I play tennis. I think
the sculpture Laocoön and His Sons
is kind of hot. In this poem the poet
uses phallic imagery in the form
of a crocodile. When I was young
I would sneak into my older brothers’ room
and take things. One of my brothers died
and I still think about him. He won a prize
for a haiku he wrote in high school
but I only remember two lines. I have
a photograph of him and his fiancée
with parrots on their heads. I stole
a pair of his shoes to wear to his funeral.
My husband gave me a painting for Christmas
but it wasn’t what I was expecting and
I didn’t like it at first but now I do
(metaphor). If things had gone just a little
differently I could easily be alone. I binge-watch
The Office with my son. He likes to eat
a big snack right before bed, just like I did/
do. I have a tattoo and my students
always want to know what it means; I don’t
know what it means. I had a moment
of transcendence once, but it didn’t
last. The Burmese Python doesn’t belong
in Florida (metaphor?). My father was an actor
and a complete mystery to me. Men,
in general, are a complete mystery to me.
I write poetry, but I’m still going to die.
Previously published in DIAGRAM
Bill Hollands is a teacher and poet in Seattle, where he lives with his husband and their son. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Rattle, DIAGRAM, North American Review, The American Journal of Poetry, Hawai`i Pacific Review, The Account, Wildness, and elsewhere.