Three Poems by Marianne Chan
Photo by Caleb Woods
On Eroticism at Sixteen
Sex was introduced to me as Country Western,
so many cowboys, cowgirls, reverse, upside down,
downside up. Equine parties. Chambray, denim,
tartan. So many lassos, so much clickety-clack.
I couldn’t say what I wanted, but I wanted something
I couldn’t hear, and I couldn’t hear the language
of my wanting with all the clicking, clacking,
clocking of boot heels, the vociferous aroma
of compressed leather, the black bandanas, the fringe.
The Old Guy at the mic directing our movements.
No one could tell me—not in this Spaghetti Western
of Spaghetti Ohs—what Desire was for. They were all
too busy square dancing at the Chance saloon, receiving
a voice in their head muttering: Tarnation.
Ode to Jesus Christ Superstar
You played in the background of my childhood
on the television, though my father never liked
your interpretation of Herod, Too feminine, he said.
Plus, Mary Magdalene and Jesus—their relationship
is obscene–but at the end, I wanted them to be together,
or at least kiss once, but I had to remind myself
that Jesus will die thirsty on the cross always saving,
never laying, a single soul, not Mary M., not any
one of his apostles, though they all ate his body
like cookies—big toe for Peter; perineum for Paul;
the liver for John; a nipple for Andrew. I watched
you at 13 again and again while I expressed
the sexual energy you created by drawing pictures
of people doing it: two men in the gym locker
room, or a girl and guy bent over at school, little
comic book squares of straight-up fornication,
and it felt good to do this, but I felt guilty for
putting these nasty vignettes on paper, because
I knew my Lola Kikay was up in heaven shaking
her big forehead at me, because this was lust,
and I used up all the printer paper in the house
on a sin, hiding piles of my self-made cartoon porn
in a book of Bye Bye Birdie sheet music under
my bed. My father eventually found these drawings
and was disturbed, but in truth, my parents were
to blame for these early perversions. Why, oh, why
did they let me watch so many musicals? Had they
not seen the sexual depravity in Seven Brides for Seven
Brothers? How did they miss the young men’s
gorgeous, technicolor bodies swinging, gyrating,
and flipping across the screen? And how could
I not thirst, watching a former nun seduce
Christopher Plummer with music, and when he sings
“Edelweiss,” should I feel nothing as Plummer’s
rock-hard façade liquefies into floral goo? But in you,
J.C.S., there is no one hotter than Judas, gesticulating
against a pile of stone, belting, “All your followers
are blind, too much heaven on their minds!”
Indeed; I too was nearsighted because I sat
too close to the television screen, blinded not by
heaven, but by this bell-bottomed earth, this Andrew
Lloyd Weber wonderland. I was Judas, kissing his
Master on the lips, betraying the soul for the body,
but my body is my soul, especially choreographed,
doing the splits and bursting into song.
Voice Memo
my friend farts when she cries
and records it on a voice memo
that I listen to repeatedly
on a yellow-hot day in June
where I spend all my time
in air conditioned
coffee shops drinking matcha
by myself and doing no work
just laughing at farts
I envy the harmony
that exists in her sad body
where all parts weep
simultaneously
her eyes her mouth her butt
a chorus everything in consensus
expressing the inexpressible
sadness of our times
until it has all been released
like doves at a wedding
out of each circular orifice
but she doesn’t like it she says
digestive issues on top
of everything else
but I think it’s beautiful
she’s beautiful always
and on this voice memo
because she’s begun laughing now
her fart sounds like a whistle
reminding us both of a train
coming to town for a hot second
and then departing again
disappearing into the distance
like a film’s slow fade
this too shall pass says the gas
I think to myself
but don’t say aloud
even the wind is broken
Marianne Chan grew up in Stuttgart, Germany, and Lansing, Michigan. She is the author of All Heathens (Sarabande Books, 2020), which was the winner of the 2021 GLCA New Writers Award, and Leaving Biddle City (Sarabande Books, 2024). Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Best American Poetry, New England Review, Kenyon Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at Old Dominion University and teaches poetry in the Warren Wilson College MFA program for Writers.