Poetry by Valerie Nies

                ​Nicolas Henderson CC



​​THE GOD GRID FAILED TEXAS

In a state cinched at the waist 
with a belt made from bibles, 
God was too angry to keep the power 
on, they said.

Poseidon came back from Mexico 
with Giardia and gave it to the Pisces fishes who froze 
swimming up the pipes. 

Edesia who loved to eat 
and eat and eat left only stray 
spinach leaves at the corner Fresh Plus, so Scarcity, 
goddess of nothing
and fewer, could shine minimalism,
                                                                                                                  or that’s what I heard from Mercury 
                                                                                                                                                                      next door. 

Prometheus took a vacation, then murdered 
an 11 year old immigrant in his bed, after he played in the snow 
for the first time that day. 

Vayu and Marzanna made hard love in a sacred 
live oak tree to keep warm, 
then blew down the branches, which snapped 
a Prius, but blessed 
some guilty fool with heat for the night. 

And on the seventh day,
when everyone was tired and ready to go home, 
the Capricorn sea goat showed up, with a keg to flood 
our spirits. 

For a week the gods played poker and smoked cigars, 
like bachelor party savages, the men told us, 
while neighbors collected twigs and melted
snow for toilet tanks.

The men who once hung billboards praising
Jesus is Alive along highways serpentining 
cotton fields, deserts, hills, coastal bends, oil 
wells, and panhandle plains said this while they took shits 
in the yards they landscaped with new gold. 






BURNT HONEY

My sister, a brunette 
giraffe whose skin pops against
a field of dandelions.

I was a short squirrel chatting,
begging her to tell me how the earth
could spin while spinning. 

When I told my sister 
to stop tickling me
she tickled me more.

When I asked my sister about tampons
she told me to read the directions 
on the box. When I asked my sister

for movie suggestions the first time 
I invited Paul Dillard over she said
A Clockwork Orange, so we made out

during a rape scene. I tacked 
a photo on my silver  fridge. Of us. She was eight
and I was five. We are frosting

burnt honey 
cookies at an avocado 
colored dining room table .

My mother’s grandfather clock towering
behind us. The grandfather clock
my sister asked me how she should

ask our mother to one day give her.
Two tall things in a house belong together. 
I said, sweetly. Not big and demanding.

Like the bass note chime that rings
from the clock in my living room, which I pull 
out a ladder to dust each spring.  
​


​


REMNANTS ON THE POOL TABLE’S SOFT FELT

Billiards became popular in the 15th century among the French nobility
               and in my friend Carrie’s basement around 10th grade, when we’d drink 
Hot Damn and sing along to Garbage. Pool playing is a rom-com shortcut
 
                to reveal hot starlets as carefree women undemanding of their leading men. 
A pool-playing chick hooks up her TV herself and enjoys 
                paying for BBQ after her label-less beau shows up 47 minutes late 

for their Saturday date. When I lean over a pool table, it’s more struggle 
                than sexy. Perhaps because I’m short. Like this video I once saw of a turtle attempting 
to climb steps. Why is a turtle even near stairs? Grasping 

                for things that don’t make sense for its life path? 
A turtle prefers ponds and grass, but here’s this reptile YouTube star 
                trying to surmount a berber-covered split-level. Just stop. 

But sometimes it takes a lot of evidence to determine 
                what is or is not ours. I was never good at playing pool in bars, 
though I excelled at drinking in bars and at parties and on my patio alone 

                with my cat, chain-smoking, scrolling through Facebook to spy envious 
on other people’s purposeful lives, which mine was not. I drank 
                like this for years before someone, or many people, pointed out buying six 

packs of Coors Light from Chevron, drinking five and surrendering 
                the sixth down the sink, vowing to stop forever wasn’t healthy. 
But before this, in my early 20s, when surrounded with unhealthy, 

I’d play pool at Midwestern bars named Sidelines and Sports Bar, 
                even though I was the least sporty person. Stubbled men in hockey jerseys
and hunting camo, blond women with fake tans named Cammy chalked up 

                cues, the way fawns know how to walk straight from the womb. Shoot 
and click, followed by stripe or solid sphere rhythmic rolling 
                 toward a pocket, the sound of upstairs neighbors moving furniture. Not me. 

I looked like a bad improviser never knowing how much chalk was too much. 
                But, not liking pool is not an option where I grew up. Like ice fishing and marrying 
too young and drenching salads in mayonnaise—it’s a heartland prerequisite. 

                 My hands never knew how to grip the pool stick with control, stuttering uneven 
as it fumbled toward a scratched cueball. That part felt familiar: pointing at things I thought 
                 were my destiny. Chalk dust on hands. An immediate mistake. Wanting 

to wash it off right away. My fingers, already so end-of-November dry. 
                On that one night, I don’t remember if I actually played pool, or if I just watched. 
I remember flirting with the guy from high school I never talked to but now, five years later 

               on a Thanksgiving break, had so much in common with: writing, good hair, and
green parkas with furry hoods. I remember anger at my boyfriend for staying home, being handed 
               tall beers, someone driving us in a Toyota or Lexus. The next morning when I woke,

I saw white handprints on my stretchy black NY and Company blouse spread 
              on my bedroom floor beside a condom wrapper that told me one of two stories: 
I ‘d cheated on the boyfriend for whom my 23-year-old infant heart wanted 

               to marry too young and make bowls of mayo salads. Or, 
the other one that for years I called a “gray area” to counselors and over coffees
               with women who possessed their own gray areas. 

It’s easier. Not too harsh. A mirage. Remnants 
                outlined on the pool table’s soft felt, an ignorable crayon, the inside 
of my cat’s ears, an emptied but unwashed ashtray, the entire sky of San Francisco. 

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Valerie Nies (she/her/hers) is a comedian, writer, and gluten enthusiast whose writing has been featured in McSweeney's, Reductress, and Oddball Magazine. Find her in Austin, Texas, scanning WebMD. She’s also on Twitter/IG @valerieknees and at valerienies.com.

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