Ben Pelhan: ‘I wanted to be a sex god.’, ‘unapologetically’, ‘baggage’, and ‘One sad thing about the summer’

I wanted to be a sex god.

I became a poet
now an employee
I forget as much as I can

I watch this cup
that I made for the flies
to drown

keep filling this
kitchen with spices
I wanted you

to know this
about the flies
the cup

is an ambush
when you ask
I tell you

I am fine
I don’t even believe
in gods

anymore
I don’t even believe
in cups

unapologetically

I am trying to do a new thing
which is that I’m trying to do
an old thing
a thing I used to do
I used to fail
unapologetically
for example
this poem

baggage

all planes carry baggage
but it can be miscarried too
misplaced, misidentified, and lost
altogether lost
I read a story once
about a plane whose cargo
door opened mid-flight and tipped
its baggage out over the sea
miscarried, past tense
what I remember about miscarriage
was how very present tense it was
finding out not
that you have had a miscarriage
but that you are having one
currently, today, you are having it
tomorrow you will be too
not lost, but losing
imagine being on your way to somewhere
hand in hand and happy
window seat and everything
then finding out mid-flight
no choice but to carry on
to wherever you are headed now
all the time knowing that when you arrive
there will be nothing to clothe you

One sad thing about the summer

is the sunset
hiding behind
the tree just outside
my window bursting with leaves
so very green they make you think
you’re the lucky one and the other
window just far enough past
that stretch of branches
that you can still see
west is in the room where
my daughter almost always is
asleep by the time
those colours kick off
their tap shoes and twinkle
tiny toes
the leaves

are the sad thing
but we tried to fill
that room for years
after that first lost
summer

hard summer
so she can have that window
with that big swimming sunset
washing through her dream
like it belongs to her
I can tell it’s a good one
tonight just glancing
at those sweet blushing
clouds their big
round soft
summer edges
I want to pinch them
and I will
smile at every single
leaf waving green
like they do
I will wave back
like sleep tight
and goodnight
and goddamn