Sonnet: Joe Crocker, ‘Stick and Twist’

The more that you dislike the way I am,
the less I worry what it is you like.
I let go the way that you don’t like
the rattled heart of me, the way I am.
 
Perhaps we’re going through a sticky patch.
The patch that stuck us down long years ago
is not as sticky now. But even so,
its tar has held us close enough to catch.
 
It covers up the cracks and hides the shabby
seams we couldn’t mend. We still pretend
to rub along regardless. In the end,
perhaps we are just averagely unhappy.
 
The way we blister love and twist its scar.
We sort of stick it out. And peel apart.

*****

Joe Crocker writes: “I wrote this poem a year or two ago as an expression of frustration and sadness about the slow decline of a long marriage. The title is  an allusion to the UK card game Pontoon (Blackjack in the States?) where you can either hold your cards (stick) or ask the dealer for another (twist). It’s written from the perspective of one person in two voices. The italic lines are pained and self-pitying and the middle stanzas are him trying to figure out what has happened.”

‘Stick and Twist’ was originally published in the current Rat’s Ass Review.

Joe Crocker has a 25 yds breast-stroke certificate, several Scouting badges and “O” level Epistemology. He has won prizes – bubble bath mostly, a bottle of Baileys once. His poems squat in obscure corners of the internet. He doesn’t have a pamphlet or a website but if you Google his name and add “poetry” you’ll find most of his published work (as well as links to a deceased Sheffield rock singer.) He gets by with little help from friends.

Photo: “Playing Pontoon with tiny cracker cards” by Rain Rabbit is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.