Delmarva Review: You Learn Transaction, Before Anything Else by Marlowe Jones

Author’s note: This poem spurred several conversations among my classmates about the ethics of writing about one’s family. To me, it’s about nostalgia and childhood innocence, how innocence is another word for ‘ignorance’, and how childhood nostalgia doesn’t discriminate between negative and positive experiences. I attempt to communicate this disconnect between reality and memory with my lack of capitalization and my choppy line breaks and enjambments. As for the ethics, I landed on this: where else can I say what happened, if not a poem?

You Learn Transaction,
Before Anything Else

this is the game
this is how it works

dad dares you you
do the dare dad 

pays you money
the first dare is small 

eat the hot peppers
in the bottle in the diner 

booth you get five bucks
you swallow six peppers 

ask him if that means you
get 30 he laughs which means 

not this time but you keep
that in mind the next dares 

go quick you squeeze small body
into even smaller spaces you 

get ten bucks you lick
the frozen bus stop 

pole that’s fifteen would’ve
been twenty but your tongue 

didn’t stick the game has
one rule this is the rule 

you follow above all
don’t tell mom don’t 

tell mom any of this
and you don’t his money’s 

good the last dare the very
last but you don’t know 

that yet is out in the nowhere
by the railroad tracks dad 

says lay down you say how
long he says til i say get 

up you say how much
he says fifty you lay 

down close your eyes
spread hands on warm 

wood and wait for his
words or the rumble 

you lay still and dead
or close enough you think 

you hear a whistle three
stops off you wait for him he 

waits til the gates go ting
ting ting and pulls you off 

you say nothing you hold
out your hand he gives you 

the money you walk home
still saying nothing 

when mom asks if you had fun
you still follow the one rule 

and when he leaves three
weeks later for good this time 

you can only
think to yourself 

my god i should’ve
asked for more 

⧫

Marlowe Jones is a student in the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts Program (NEOMFA)  through Cleveland State University. His poems have been published in Green Blotter, Sink Hollow, and The Courtship of Winds under a previous name. His interests outside poetry include horror movies, folklore, and birdwatching. 

The Delmarva Review, published in St. Michaels, MD, gives writers a desirable home in a printed edition (with an electronic version) for their most compelling new prose and poetry. Available to all writers for their best work, the review has been produced  at a time when many commercial  publications (and literary magazines) are closing their doors or reducing literary content. For each annual edition, the editors have read thousands of submissions to select the best  new poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Almost half of the writers are from the Delmarva and Chesapeake region. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, support comes from tax-deductible contributions and a grant from Talbot Arts with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: www.DelmarvaReview.org