Because You Asked for It
or
What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.
or
Everyone knows that poets are born and not made.


It seems easiest to talk about Hell when you have just come back. A fat kind lady was there—it was easy enough to walk around and think yourself beautiful. In Hell, everyone seems warm and comfortable. Amazingly, you are middle aged, in the wrong place and somehow— there is no way out.

Glad you took a breath; you were in the wrong mood. You almost picked the wrong book. You could have taken the wrong way. Here, in this anthology, you will find the duende. Not only does he seize the poet, but he seizes his audience as well. Read the pages and you will find the duende stinging your eye-yolks like laughter. It’s the thunder in a snail’s shell and you’re feeling it from there. Remember? The wrong place. You’re trying to drag yourself back but there will be no return. Turn the page. Here is duende.

One would like to be strong enough to turn away but like a suit with girlfriends, he winks at you:

           They are frisky—those hanged
           creatures of texture and boneless
           mechanics. Halved, they entertain
           aggression, rustle like itinerant

Because you asked for it.

Because you will turn each scalding page—there is a name for you. Itch. Whelp. Burnscar. A cakework orange. Rib-canyon. You’ll find the wrong hands forging heaven. The wrong collapsing canopy of syrupy confetti. You’ll find all the wrong names. The Washington Monument striking through a cloud. You’ll have turned the wrong page—unless—unless you’re wondering how to tell if you’re transparent? And if you are, you should know, embalmment, though a tried and sacred rite, can leave one too opaque in winter time.

Because you have been on the wrong side all this time. Because an ice cream truck parks outside your house every single night no matter what. Because irrationality, earthiness, a heightened awareness of death, and a dash of the diabolical brings the Arsenic Lobster her poems. Open the book! Find the duende:

           like cotton
           popped from a shotgun,
           running like leaves
           flung from a tunnel
           as the rubber and steel rims
           of a green Packard
           busted
           through what had been
           a quiet pecking space

Because everyone knows that poets are born and not made.
or
Because poets seriously work their asses off.

Yellow triangles hover like aches. There is a tick of knives and forks discovering porcelain. Because everywhere else, death is an end—but here, mortality is a study and these poems are lessons learned.

This is how it should be. Turn the pages. Get burned.

---
Susan Yount
Editor & Publisher, Arsenic Lobster Poetry Journal