Museum of Impending Death & My Journal has Never Been the Same
By Juliet Cook & Martin Willitts Jr
Museum of Impending Death
by Juliet Cook
The fear is creeping in again
like metallic tendrils
hiding underneath skin
(waiting to cut their way out
and find a new body to invade).
Everything we touch
could be destruction.
Museum of Impending Death
by Juliet Cook
Fish heads laughing in your face when you try to sleep.
My Journal has Never Been the Same
by Juliet Cook & Martin Willits Jr
I have been saving things that slipped away.
First a key I never knew what it opened
vanished one day, followed by a pair of shoes
I had worn to near-death. People lose socks
in wash, I lost a whole load. Nothing seemed
to stay put. A bed walked away, saw it hitching,
catch a ride. I lost letters on the way to mail them.
I got lost in the mail. Nothing could be saved,
salvaged, or stapled down: all floating away.
The refrigerator tip-toed into the sunset.
Old journals flew into abandoned birds’ nests.
Old boyfriends got flushed down the toilet, clogged the drain.
Letter after letter crossed itself off, fervent exclamation
points turned into worms. I think backwards
to the one time I tried escargot. Its hideous texture
will invade my brain forever, alongside everything bad
I’ve ever done, every regrettable mistake,
including the ones I am still making. Mix tapes
rotate and emulate snail trails on the bedroom rug.
Rugs burn before a slippery slope becomes more slippery.
As the rug flew off at the handle
and whisked away a Disney princess,
I started finding things that were not mine.
It was some kind of object exchange program.
Boyfriends with seals of approval
with actual seals applauding for fish.
Letters with Sweepstake winnings.
Worms hauling refrigerators. The Nixon tapes.
Socks in my toilet. Mistakes made by someone else.
Keys to the Magic Kingdom.
Juliet Cook is brimming with black, grey, silver, purple and dark red explosions. She is drawn to poetry, abstract visual art and other forms of expression. Her poetry has appeared in a peculiar multitude of literary publications and you can find out more at www.julietcook.weebly.com.
Martin Willitts Jr lives in Syracuse, New York. He has won numerous awards and prizes for poetry. He has 26 chapbooks including two national contest winners and 20 full-length collections including two national contest winners.