Midsummer X by Glen Armstrong
Glen Armstrong holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and teaches writing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters and has a new chapbook titled Set List (Bitchin Kitsch,) and two more scheduled for 2015: In Stone and The Most Awkward Silence of All (both Cruel Garters Press.) His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest,Conduit and Cloudbank.
Midsummer X
The boy wears a pair of men’s white
Cotton briefs
There will be no debate
On pee stains or any other mystery
This is a baptism
Nobody agreed to
As for the thespians performing
Midsummer Night’s Dream
At the community center
They too clutch the damp elastic
Their little souls inhabit
We feel helpless
We were all promised snow cones
Life’s slow unwinding
Will be acknowledged
If by nothing
Other than a cold
Dark release into the water
We were promised some kind of afterlife
We leave our assigned seats
Our place in line
Upon the long walk
Home nothing looks right
Something has died
We were promised
An intermission
But the story drags on.