Derek Graf

Newlyweds

We have our best sex in the bathroom

of a Taco Bell. In the parking lot

we’re met with raucous applause:

our mothers gripping tissues, our fathers

lighting illegal fireworks from their car hoods.

When I ask you to marry me, you disappear

into the cackling woods. I spend the night

sniffling in my Honda. After the wedding

we have our worst sex at the Airbnb in Tulsa.

Later we find ourselves at a repertory theater

where nothing plays, a slew of unborn children

jeering at us from the balcony. We both tried

to flirt with the usher so I guess this is what

they mean by karma. The moon seeps

into the field like morphine. Dearly beloved,

I ordered you a burrito. It tastes abysmal. 

First Date

Her parents upstairs huffing through sex. Over dinner

I quote scripture out of context. Children scream summer

in the park. The parched trees rehearse their death throes.

We’re caught fucking in the alley behind the daycare.

Some kid takes a mason jar and fills it with aphids.

I break it. At night I eavesdrop on her reading.

She lets her dog lunge at infants once it’s dark.

At night we listen to Christian rock while we roleplay

as starving colonists. Years later we break up at an airport.

Her parents finally dead. If only I could remember their names.