Three from David Epstein
Emerald City Hangover*
Saturday night after the witch was dead,
the tin man went out for drinks,
ended up crying into his beer,
eyelids rusted open, couldn’t sleep, and realized
that when Dorothy went off back to Kansas,
he was too toxic from being locked in
for so long. He should have told her, you know,
that home is where the heart is,
but even he gets it about duckling love:
imprinting on the first one you see, I mean,
really see. Even had she stayed in Oz,
the city at her feet, she would have wondered about the farm,
and whether she couldn’t have been happy there,
having seen Paree. Tin man finally gets up, oils his eyes, blinks at the light.
It’s work having a heart. Even a broken one.
*Formatting is designed for desktop viewing.
Tin Man’s at the Dentist
having fillings welded in. He’s spitting out the solder,
like a soldier out-mouthing shrapnel.
The dentist goes Ya got some rust pitting in the front,
ya must be sleeping open-mouthed,
probably snoring—sawing the steel;
put on this tooth-oil bedtimes, dream less
of gawking at wizards and balloons.
Tin man nodding, thinking he left out the girl,
then the hot iron in his cheek,
flux bubbling and smoke wisps among the molars.
Then he’s done: out of the chair, taking samples
of tarnish cream, chatting up the hygienist.
Home, checking his silver fillings in the bathroom mirror,
noticing new worry crinkles around his eyes, like used foil:
he’s aged a month in recent days, with his city job
and the stress of a heart that’s slow to heal.
Tin Man Goes to the gym
Wakes up thinking he has got to get over it already.
Hearts break, that’s what they do.
Of course he starts on the elliptical,
but the clanking is drawing dirty looks,
so he wipes the oil from the grips,
tries the free weights. The reps
themselves are a liberation, and he sweats,
cheeks glistening with grease.
A trainer notices him swinging the medicine ball,
asks if he ever did competitive sawyering,
says he has such a clean arc,
and he falls for her in a standard gym crush.
Later, in the showers, he’s got to think witch
to keep from sprouting a woody.
He walks out sees the trainer.
She’s getting in a car with children in the back,
and once again he sees no way
his life might fit in anyone else’s.
At home, online he goes and looks at head-shots
of metallurgy professors. Ends up two a.m.
in blacksmith porn, a pounding in his temples,
the anvil ringing with hammer blows.
David Epstein is a Connecticut, U.S. poet. He holds a Ph.D. in literature and writes in the middle of the night. An avid sailboat racer, he also works part time as a baggage handler for an airline. In 2021 he won three prizes. He has twice attended the Sancho Panza Literary Society’s workshops in Dublin, Ireland.
