Poetry by Marguerite L. Harrold

                ​Paul Sableman CC



As Ruthless

I suppose he’s good for something in the little next to nothing true 
His lips        
Injecting pieces of his story to illicit mine

At 19 it served as therapy              Though I thought it was friendship and love
Opening me up to pick through 
He found what he could use to mold himself into manhood and charm

A beard made from the mound of my pelvis made him more of a boy
His hand on my hip made him recognizable when his coloured hair was under a hat
More than just a regular nigga who couldn’t get a cab or into a club or a double down on nothin’

Shuffling though the washed out 90’s again    
Back when I was still shaking from escaping the suburbs

Something shiny and familiar
Getting something like daddy’s love
Something spectacular and transcontinental

                                 *
I learned to lock my door and crack the window
To stay up until way after Johnny Carson
So there would be only a few vulnerable hours

Half my hearing tuned to see
If he’d jiggle the handle 
Or do the slow twist and click

I knew I couldn’t kill him ‘cause no one would believe me

Mr. Delfs let me sleep in 8:00 AM chemistry class    
It was my Sr. year     
And chemistry was just a formality

Everyone knew I was too clumsy to be a scientist     
Had I learned I would have poisoned the whole house     
All traceless 
And lived up to my reputation 

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Marguerite L. Harrold’s work is a revolutionary act of kindness, gratitude, agitation and community mobilization.

Her poems thread the ecology of being human through urban and rural landscapes, in order to explore the ways in which we connect to place, dislocation and to one another.

She earned a Master’s of Fine Art in Creative Writing/Poetry (with Honors) from Columbia College Chicago. Marguerite was nominated for the 2020 Pushcart Prize (Matador Review). She was also nominated for a 2020 Illinois Arts Council grant and was a 2020 finalist for and Allied Arts Council grant. She is a member of the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley and attended the Bread Loaf Orion Environmental Writer’s Conference. Recently she retired from Chicago Department of Public Health, after 20 years of service in HIV Prevention and Environmental Health. She is currently pursuing Poetry and Naturalist work, while she travels the world. She recently returned from a trip around the world. She has poems published or forthcoming in the following journals: The Blue Nib, Jubilat, pulpmouth, “Growing Up in Chicago House Music ”-Essay The Chicago Review: The Black Arts Movement in Chicago Special Issue: Spring 2019, VINYL , The Matador Review, Anthology House: a visionary ecology project and Rigorous.

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