LOUDSPEAKER:: Poems by Adriane Quinlan

Writing

Apr 10

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**PHOTOGRAPHER:** ST. GIL, MARC, 1924-1992

WUSSY is proud to present poetry by Atlanta writer, Adriane Quinlan.
If you would like to send in a writing submission, please contact Nicholas Goodly.

The winter of watching too much basketball

I am writing you
a love letter
from the lobby
of the bad motel
as I wait for a call
for my car to be fixed
or not fixed
and Ming is gchatting me
about her boyfriend
who wrote her an e-mail
that may or may not be manipulative
but we think it’s not.
An e-mail that references the “winter
when he was watching too much basketball.”

========================================

Dinner party with a pet pig

She was the poet of wounding
Her pill prescription
His slicing

You sat listening
From across the chili-streaked countertop

And I wondered
What does he tolerate in me
Where have I also been wounded

===========================

Trader Vic's

I’m the only person left alive
Who gets really excited
About tiki torches.

It has to do with my childhood
In Los Angeles
Near Disneyland
Where there is – or was – a place

Maybe called the ‘Tiki Room’

Where animatronic birds
Sing to you. And later
When we moved away
The Rainforest Cafe had something
The same or maybe different. It’s the
Simulacra I remember. Not the real thing
like how New Orleans to me
is the same as the Mark Twain ride
or reminds me of Guangzhou, China
where there is also a river, also spanish moss.

Whatever we see first we always see.
Across the fire of the tiki torch
I remembered the first time I saw you
the first time you lit a flame.

Adriane Quinlan is a writer and journalist based in Atlanta. Her work is collected here.

Join us at the next edition of LOUDSPEAKER: Queer Reading an Open Mic Night at Revelator Coffee, Grant Park on April 22 at 7pm. More info here.

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