MICHAEL D. DURKOTA - POEMS

Michael D. Durkota holds a master of fine arts degree from the University of Pittsburgh. His debut novel, Once in a Blue Year, follows two friends during the Persian Gulf War as they struggle with their navy service, adulthood, and relationships. Durkota lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with his wife. He is currently working on his second novel and a collection of odd stories and poems. You can follow him on twitter (@durk13) or on his website (durkota.net). 

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Love, at Dusk
​

​Once when we were young
I stole a kiss as we sat on the picnic table
in your back yard at dusk.
You seemed surprised, but kissed me back.
We were thirteen and didn’t yet know where kisses led.
We were thirteen and in love,
perhaps the purest love either of us will ever feel.
We were thirteen and my house down the street was empty,
the boxes already hauled away to the new place.
We were thirteen years old and I was moving to the other side of town,
just a few miles away,
but it might as well have been the other side of the planet.
We were only thirteen and we never saw each other again.
A different school.
Different friends.
Different loves.
Different lives.
Although for me, forever changed by that stolen kiss
near the sunset of our love.

What Love Is
​

​You are seated in an uncomfortable chair that squeaks
like the old screened door at your step-dad’s trailer. 
The lighting is dim, almost cavernous, the air
is like a morning mist against your skin. 
The high ceiling and acoustic walls create a void
where sound drops off like lemmings
from a cliff. 
 
You are making small-talk
with a woman seated next to you
—or a man. 
She is young firm alive white
teeth glaring
through sensual lips slightly smiling. 
She laughs at what you say, throwing
her head back, exaggerating, touching you
slightly on the arm.  And you realize quite suddenly,
you don’t like yourself. 
And the fact that this person is trying to impress you
sickens you.  You want to explain
how wrong she is, how bad
her impressions are, how pathetic
she is for liking you. 
You can’t though. 
 
You wash the words down with a sip of watery soda 
and smile at her while whispering
a sardonic remark about the couple 
Seated next to you. 
She laughs again. 
This time you simply imagine her naked. 
And vulnerable. 
You adjust yourself in the seat 
as the darkness descends on you
and the really bad movie
begins.

Home
​

​She remembers her father
only vaguely. He was a stubborn man.
She remembers listening to his muffled voice
through the cracked floor boards
of the house they inhabited when she was eight.
Her mother was already gone. Or dead.
Gone so long she couldn't remember her face
or even the color of her hair.
It is just her father she remembers,
talking to the television through a slur
of vodka and blaming the shadows for his missing wife
and the child upstairs that he knew he could never raise.