Robert Wood Lynn
"when you were young" by Marius Seidlitz (IG: @marius.seidlitz)
Robert Wood Lynn is a poet from Virginia. His debut collection Mothman Apologia (2022 Yale University Press) was selected by Rae Armantrout for the 2021 Yale Younger Poets prize, and his chapbook How to Maintain Eye Contact is forthcoming from Button Poetry in January 2023. His work has been featured in Ploughshares, Poetry Daily, The Southern Review, The Yale Review and other publications.
AFTER ALL THE UNPLEASANTNESS,
ARMS HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY FOR THEMSELVES
Anyone who told you we were here to toss fists
here to get pointy over armrests here to push people
off of barstools or over tables even sometimes
into traffic anyone who says that deserves exactly
what we gave them we didn’t ask for this we asked
you to remember us jutting out in front of loved ones
just before they walk into the street remember us thrown
like seatbelts across the passenger side remember
us lifting lovers onto kitchen counters to let tongues
do their holy work remember every time we’ve reached
over to brush hair out of a friend’s face so you can look
them in the eyes how we tossed nieces just high enough
they never doubted we’d catch them please remember us
slung over the shoulders of friends leaving a party
at sunrise while the legs teeter and mouths round down
the corners of words sung loudly to each other
a few inches away remember us still here holding another steady
steady saying goodbye remember us the engine of the wave
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