Poetry by James Roach

               ​stanze CC



Too Much Fire, Too Much Distance

She was the first one 
                                              to shave the space between 
                               my legs completely smooth.
I wore a pair of jeans, no underwear, 
                                              marveling the feeling of new skin against 
denim, 
awkward and vaguely erotic. 
We drove lustful 
                               to Tower Grove park, 
                               and                                      took 

pictures, 
                then had sex on my bed
                in my parent’s house
                               where we both lived. 
She was a leather jacket
                                              and red flags, 
spiked blond hair
                                              and overstayed welcomes,
wrapped in my mother’s disapproval. 
                She kept the company 
                               of men who held motor oil under their nails
                and in their veins. 
Her life story took the shape of roadside wreckage, 
                                                                                             metal and glass 
cutting into the horizon, 
                                              with a plot that never sounded honest. 
                                Her ideas wreaked of havoc
and  I swallowed them, 
                                               willing and  
eager.
               I happily joined in 
                                                              on sex
               with guys I knew from childhood,
so we could raise a child of our own,
born of her. 
She was the embodiment of chaos,
                                                             a mother already to a four year-old daughter.
At nineteen, 
                                                                                             I was given the unfamiliar 
               and uneasy title 
               of 
                                                                             stepmom, 
to a child                           who has grown now
                                                             into someone I’ll 
never know. 
                But at four,
                                              she climbed on my back
to get a better view of the stars, 
said 
                                you can’t catch them. 
They are too much fire
                                and too 
                                                             much 
distance. 
​

​

James is a poet in Olympia, Washington who does his best work between the hours of up-too-late and is-it-even-worth-trying-to-sleep? His poetry focuses on anxiety, recovery from alcoholism, nature, family, and being trans. His early work can be found in The Poet's Billow. 

---