Aaron Belz
BLANKING ON YOUR NAME
Your enemy might be kinder than you.
The person you’re most jealous of
might be humbler than you.
Someone who’s inexplicably mean to you
might be more ethical than you.
Someone who speaks ill of you
might be doing so with cause.
The person you’ve respected for years
and interacted with from time to time
pleasantly, or so it seemed to you,
but now ignores you might have
things to do that are legitimately
more important than talking to you.
Even your grown children who congratulate
themselves, perhaps subconsciously,
for the benevolence they demonstrate
when they spend time with you
might have reasons for doing so.
And your former employer
might have hired someone more qualified
and significantly better-looking than you
to fill the position you vacated
because you felt it was beneath you.
Most people might be happier than you.
In fact, you might be the bad actor.
You might be the irritable coworker
who takes cleaning supplies home
to clean his own kitchen and bathroom.
Despite all your hustle, you might be
the least ambitious—having had gifts
and cultivated them only somewhat,
having allowed them to grow fallow
or discovered a limit to which they grow.
And even with all this said, you might be
the most inconsolably bitter person
and have no good reason to be so.
Because, after all, your roof doesn’t leak.
Your utility bills have been paid.
Your windows open and close.
You have a bed, right? Bright morning
in which to wake up? Greeting cards
stored in a shoebox somewhere?
Aaron Belz lives in St. Louis, Missouri. His poetry has appeared in Fence, Fine Madness, Exquisite Corpse, The Atlantic, Anti-Heroin Chic, Villain Era, Nimrod and other places. He has published four books, including Glitter Bomb (Persea, 2014) and Soft Launch (2019). John Ashbery said, “Belz’s poetry reminds us that poetry should be bright, friendly, surprising, and totally committed to everything but itself. Reading him is like dreaming of a summer vacation and then taking it.” There’s more about Aaron Belz at belz.net.
Banner Art:
Board for Ruling Paper, Attributed to Iran or Turkey, 17th-18th Century, The MET
