Two Poems by Nathan Graziano

Relative to Guns 'N' Roses

In a box in the basement, strewn with cobwebs,

I find a photo album and the ratty blond wig

I wore one Halloween in college when I dressed

as my alter ego, the front man of a lipstick band

named Chix that I quit the band in a hissy fit

when my drummer’s heroin habit left him

unable to keep time, nodding at live shows

and absent when it came to the studio tracks.

So my alter ego pursued a solo project, aborted

when I collapsed on stage then went to rehab

and came out a Scientologist, paying big bucks

to have the thetans expelled from my body.

Or that was the narrative I told the pretty girl

who did my make-up that night as I snorted

an eight-ball of cocaine and tried to pretend

that I was interesting and unpredictable, claiming

I had a high school friend who was a roadie

for Guns N’ Roses who said that Axl Rose

sucker-punched him backstage during a blackout.

And as she applied a thick stripe of blue

blusher, tracing each cheekbone, I told her

that relative to Axl Rose, my own drug use

was strictly recreational. And now, as I stare

at this picture of me at twenty-two, wearing

a skintight pair of thrift-store leather pants,

I can hear her tell me, “You’re trying too hard.”

With Salt

Roger, a friend from the bar,

can’t stand Bart, a guy in his 50s

who wears farmer’s overalls,

drives a red antique roadster

and parrots the propaganda

he picks up from Fox News.

One night, soused, Roger

explained to me that salt

will dissipate the head on a beer

as Bart strolled into the bar

with chicken chunks in his beard.

“I don’t understand why

the homos think they can

marry like regular people,”

Bart said then sucked back

a bump of house bourbon.

“Bart the Fart,” Roger barked,

licking his top lip and grinning.

Bart didn’t hear him but I laughed.

With salt, what else needs to be said?