2 Poems by Ben Purkert

Ben Purkert is the author of For the Love of Endings, named one of Adroit's best poetry books of 2018. His poems appear or are forthcoming in The New Yorker, Poetry, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, The Believer, and elsewhere. He teaches creative writing at Rutgers and is the editor of Back Draft, a Guernica interview series focused on poetry and revision. He's currently working on a novel because he likes to sufferrrrrrr.

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THE ONLY EARTHLING

they picked on me because
I was different the only one with
a blue dot on my forehead they rolled
a boulder over my face they kicked

my shins just to watch me bloom
Tell us about Earth they cried
but I knew not to answer I only
turned a bluer shade the other kids

were like a snake that swallows
a mouse and for a minute the mouse
is neither mouse nor snake simply
the shape of one life passing
​
through another I remember life
back home it wasn’t so terrible
our house had a screen door
to keep the bugs out

THE ONLY FRIEND

a giant mosquito had me over
for dinner it was a nice time I was
a nice dinner he could’ve finished me
then and there but saved some

for later he said he still wanted
to be friends though I found it hard
to believe he could fly with such
difficult wings he tried to prove it

but was too drunk and got only
inches off the ground so I let him
jump on my back and he yelled See
I’m flying then I swore I heard him
​
start to cry but what does crying
sound like before the tears hit
the ground before they fall
suddenly to their knees