Writing Life
If you make your god jealous, submit to him.
Love him. Ruffle his curly black hair. Offer him
your body and all your softest parts, the ones
you only offer some of the time.
Swear on the river, the unbreakable
swear, that you will give up
the offending one. Kiss him all over.
You didn’t mean to hurt his heart,
but you did.
-M. Ashley
The base note has something to do with
sunscreen—a fair haired girl’s
most important piece of camping gear
next to bug spray
which is the sharp second layer of the scent.
The whiff of stiff, chlorinated towels,
unwashed and hot from the top
of the waist-high chain link fence
they were draped over to dry
completes the first perfumer’s chord.
For nuance, a drop of happy sweat
from happy children come to wash
their hands and faces with pink powdered soap
from lime green metal dispensers
hung over shabby sinks
on which daddy long legs perch
each rolling their eight dull eyes
at the rush and frivolity of the new generation.
-M. Ashley
A raven would
Literally have to scream
Nevermore in my face for
Me to know the difference
Between him and the
Crow over whom he has
Elevated himself
Largely by having once
And famously screamed
Nevermore
In this other poet’s face.
-M. Ashley
We don’t look down on
each other here. This one forced
this one willing, this one forced
by force, this one forced by
circumstances, this one forced
and not knowing it, thinking that she,
in her non-stripper shoes, in control of
the chess board, receiving presents
is above it.
We all cry into the same
sweaty pillows.
-M. Ashley
My own soul, these days,
Dry but mostly cling,
needs a little static release,
needs a sacheted drawer
to sleep in.
-M. Ashley
Rebellion in a thousand silver
Candy wrappers thrown on the floor
Each one reflects a side of my face
My face gets bigger
The mirror must also get bigger
So say the lying mirror wrappers
-M. Ashley
Where we gassed and gabbed
we ground our cigarettes out
on the concrete window ledge
in front of the bustling store—
in front of our managers, what
kind of fuck did we give? Our
feet and backs were killing us and
somebody pissed in the fitting room
again. Someone left a dirty diaper
open in a shopping cart. Literal
shit. You customers deserved
every dirty thing we said.
-M. Ashley
I asked him why the gods expressed
their flowering through rape myths
He looked at me with one dark
eye and said, “I don’t know
how you want me
to answer this question.”
-M. Ashley
My pharmacist’s assistant boyfriend
gained weight.
It brings us closer as our fingers
touch over the Hydrocodone
and our wrinkles show
and our noses shine
under the fluorescent lights.
I say in a low voice
“You know they’re for my mother.”
He leans forward and says
so gently
“I know. I remember you.”
I tell him they’re for my mother every time
to prompt his sweet nothing.
I am unashamed. I flounce
out of the pharmacy with my narcotics
swinging my hips.
-M. Ashley
Morning and evening news there
seems always to be one of us
getting murdered by our
mate. And then the news moves
on to talk chirpily about the latest
on what will make us all thin.
The thinner we are
the more easily tossed.
-M. Ashley
M. N. Ashley 