Three poems by Stefanie Wielkopolan

Stefanie Wielkopolan is the first in a series of interviews called "Up and Coming Writers." She's done some pretty amazing stuff over the last few years, so stay tuned for the interview I did with her. It will be featured this Friday, August 14! Now, to the poems.

Hickory Smoked Turkey

Ten years ago my father started cooking the Thanksgiving bird outside on the grill.
Designer coal and hickory branded the meat, crisp brown skin. I take a picture, every year, of my father lifting the meat off the fire. An entire photo album dedicated to the Thanksgiving animal.

A body sectioned off, cut through by an electric knife. Electric. Edges, almost pink,
lie on my plate. After every bite my father inquires, with an almost schoolboy
curiosity, Can you taste the hickory chips? Can you?

Every Thanksgiving my father offers me a plate of flesh. You still eat turkey, right? Don’t you miss the hickory?

My sarcastic plate of potatoes, squash, and lettuce send my father into a wine-washed monologue of eating meat. Seriously, you don’t want to try a little piece? I do, but I would never tell him. I look at the bird and recall the animal. I decline once again.

Truth: Most turkeys don’t give a shit whether or not they end up in an oven or a grill.
My father seems to be the only one who cares.

This morning a wild turkey, dead on the highway, greets me as I drive home. I smell hickory. I place the plate of food my mother sent, mashed potatoes and green beans,
in the fridge, stick this year’s photo of my father and the Thanksgiving bird on the freezer door.


Circa 1983

What I want to say is I am sorry

for peeing on your head

that summer we spent in East Tawas.

Twenty four years ago

when you were sixteen and I

was four

you pulled me up to your shoulders

as I waded out of the lake

my legs around your neck.

My mother met us on the beach

handed me a towel.

I said thank you

then peed

warm against your back

with a smile.

My parent’s drunk friends

laughed as you planted me on the ground

pinched my cheek

and ran back into the water.

I watched you in Lake Huron

as you washed your chest and arms

and I was satisfied, knowing

you were mine.

My brother-in-law calls me a whore

in front of my one night stand.
In front of the waffles and sausage
he says: Your bedroom should have a revolving door.

Whore, as defined by the online dictionary
meaning sexually promiscuous or one who desires.
Whore, as in one who sleeps well.

My brother-in-law tells me I needed to settle down
that there isn’t a career in poetry
as he politely drinks his coffee and asks me
to pass the syrup.

I grab the bottle
and pour syrup on sections of my waffle.
Pieces drip the word whore as I place
the fork in my mouth and lick
my lips.

You are a whore.

I look at my brother-in-law, mouth full of breakfast and say:
Thank you.
Thank you for noticing.

Stefanie Wielkopolan is a Michigan poet who hates suburbia but keeps finding herself in the middle of it. Up until the age of nine her parents owned Maples Bowling Alley where she spent her Saturdays tap dancing on the bar counter, watching cartoons, and eating warm ham and cheese sandwiches served on stale onion rolls. It is her time spent in the bowling alley bar that she credits for her love of a fine dive bar. She currently holds a MA in Liberal Studies and an MFA in Poetry. She teaches composition at Henry Ford Community College and is a Writer-in Residence for the non-profit agency InsideOut Literary Arts Project in Detroit. She is back in Dearborn, MI and is in the process of becoming a yoga instructor.