Pre-Screener’s Suite, 2022
By Anne Mydla
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family left their name on a document bound for an anonymously judged poetry contest in their own way." —[Author name removed]
I. This is just to say
I have removed
my name
from the document
It is a truth universally acknowledged
that a single man in possession of a good fortune
must be in the habit of taking his name off the document
You ain't nothing but a hound dog
leaving your name on the document
The owl and the pussycat went to sea
in a beautiful state of assurance that they'd taken their names off the document
Never gonna give you up
never gonna let you see my name on the document
This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You've really made the grade
being the only man living who remembered to take his name off the document
Luke
I am your father
and yet even I, a Sith Lord, never, ever neglected to take my name off the document
In the beginning
was the Word
and the Word was with God
and It was not on the Document
When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
speaking words of wisdom
"Take your name off the document"
I came
I saw
I conquered my urge to leave the name on the document
Yes, I—
I set a phone alarm
a pre-scheduled email
and several booby traps
to remind myself to take my name off the document
and that
has made
me take my name off the document.
II. Haikus for the Unredacted
Or: Did You Know?
You pay my bills in
Poland—You! who left your name
on the document.
Poet, your carefree,
hedonistic formatting
pays a tidy rent
on an apartment
in a post-Soviet block,
stuccoed in pastels,
wherein I read name
after name after name and
eat my pierogies.
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