Andy Powell

ode to the exclamation mark

for Ellen Hagan!

I know it’s possible
to convey exclamation
& perhaps even to convey it better
& without potential read-ins of facetiousness
without an abundance of exclamation marks,
but! however! I must contest!
I won’t! I hereby proclaim! give you an exclamation mark
that doesn’t mark a thing that wouldn’t bubble out
of me like a sourdough starter! Or a firework!
Or champagne bubbles!
I’m a two-liter of coke somebody cute
dropped a mento into! 

Crackle! Sizzle! I’m fizzing!
Fun verb wham!
Mark this jubilance with a tangerine Crayola!
Or a golden Sharpie!
Exclamation marks for all the texts about kittens!
And the texts about men being bad!
And somehow not knowing!
They! Know!
For all the poems with milkshakes & love
& fear!
I’m keeping! them! in!
So what if I’m covering up some heavy shit
with excitement! We’re all dying!
Maybe that’s great!
Maybe none of us are!
Love compost! Love rebirth!
Could anything be beautiful without time?!
Probably!
We’re all worse than we want to be!
Or we’re all better than we think we are!
We’re all hotter than we think we are!
(Maybe some of you know! I’m sorry
for the “we”!)  

Beginnings!
Endings!
Curses!
Midsections!
Particularly Prince’s!
Hello, Stacy! 

Hello, Ellen! I know
you’re exclaiming
somewhere!
Maybe in a book!
Maybe with Parneshia!
Or Celi! Or DFlo! Or Miriam!
A million people I’ve seen you exclaiming
with & to & about!
& those are only the ones
I’ve seen you exclaiming with & to & about!
Why can’t we tone down the exclamation marks
in our work emails!!
While you’re here, and because exclaiming
is scattered business, burning question!!
What is it you say to all the kids
when they walk off the stage
when you host the DreamYard poetry slam?!
They’re shaking with nerves
& excitement & a little embarrassment
& each year Julia & I speculate
when you hold their shoulders
& hand them a full encouragement!
Every! Year! Every! Student!
SUCH! A! COMMITMENT! TO! LOVE!
Love!
Love! Love!
Love!
Love!

Why does every poem I write want to be two poems, or three or four?

Can’t hide my mess, myself from the friend beside me.

—Chen Chen, “Poem In Noisy Mouthfuls”

Is it because I always want to turn my poems
into love poems for my loves at the end
of my poems even when the poem had a single subject,

like the one about a sensitive boy in an insensitive country?
What does that boy need for balance but sweet
supportive silly socialist friends? Can’t

tell me the moon can’t hold all my friends
in its arms. So many friend birthdays means every poem
needs ice cream cake and rollerskates. Can’t tell me

the buttercups in the outfield I was caught
loving more than baseball can’t be turned into a poem
about my buttercup Matty & his copy of Citizen Illegal & his cute

park naps. Can’t tell me the reading Frank on the beach
in a tiny orange bathing suit poem doesn’t also
have Lisa Green turning the beach into a dance party.

Can’t tell me the poem with Lisa Green in it
doesn’t also have Ayaris teaching me how to trim
a plant on her way to the MTA Fare Strike. Can’t

tell me the poem about patriarchal naming practices
in the family can’t become a poem about Spencer
sending Timothée thirst traps—for him, for Julia & me,

for the outfits; he knows what’s good for the team
and what sequins are quietly healing. I’ve been called
a thousand names, and respond most kindly

to those planted sweetly by my loves:
(c)andy, bun, sugarflower, AP Style, lightning bug.