HARRYETTE MULLEN

Please Don’t Blow Your Top: Five Poems

Please Don’t Blow Your Top

Even if there hasn’t been a serious eruption in the last 500 years,
living near a quiet volcano, potentially dangerous “because of its
great height, frequent earthquakes, active hydrothermal system,
and extensive glacier mantle,” I keep an eye on the sky, an ear on
alert, in case the mouth needs to vent.

Sure, it’s peaceful now, but I know it could be spewing ashes,
shooting flares of seething lava. I worry how fast I’d need to run to
escape the mountain’s wrath, or whether its gassy expulsions might
smother me in my sleep.

At least today, this uncanny vision is not the sulfurous plume of a
volcano ready to blow. It’s only a lenticular formation of moist air,
resting on the rugged brow of a straight-faced mountain wearing an
evanescent cloud hat.

Atmospheric River

Wider than a hundred smiles, you’d suck a lot of whirlpools into
super-soaker scenes, oh heartbreaking muckraker. Wherever you’re
flowing, I’m rowing away. Was I so dry you had to rearrange
the sky? If water were whisky and I were a drunk, though you never
shared a drip or a drop in a drought, you could cry me an
atmospheric river, now that I’ve swallowed an ocean of forever
industrial chemicals and microplastic waste, been so thirsty for you.

Havana Syndrome   

Our intelligent investigation found no one to blame. We recognize
no external cause for your incoherent symptoms. Despite the
timeline of its onset, culminating with the visible distress of your
invisible disability, we are unable to provide a precise diagnosis.
However, we can report with high confidence, your present disorder
is, more than likely, an unfortunate result of pre-existing conditions
rather than the alleged attack of a nefarious foreign agent or
exposure to contamination from some undetected domestic hazard.   

Chili Today, Hot Tamale

When we ordered that spicy combo of beef enhanced with
hormones, pathogenic peppers, hybrid hothouse tomatoes, and
genetically modified corn, who knew we were messing with the
planet? We only wanted cheap, fast food—and plenty of it—to
assuage our insatiable cravings. Who doesn’t love Taco Tuesday,
and what would life be without breakfast burritos? Now do we hear
the cannons of green revolution backfiring, as each day’s forecast
brings more heartburn than a frozen patio dinner?

Executive Function  

Bold adventurer trained for alpine altitudes, intrepid climber
determined to scale snowy heights and inch across perilous
crevasses, with every exhausting breath, you scramble to reach the
ultimate peak. Although you have prepared for years to make this
daring expedition, you might not get to the mountain top. Your
strength might not endure, despite your indomitable will. As your
extremities freeze, you might need to turn back to base to be treated
for frostbite. On your way up again, you could run out of oxygen
and lose executive function. At the end of the day, you might
summit an icy mountain and topple into a flaming volcano.

Harryette Mullen’s latest book is Open Leaves/poems from earth (Black Sunflowers Poetry Press, 2023). Others include Recyclopedia (Graywolf, 2006), winner of a PEN Beyond Margins Award, and Sleeping with the Dictionary (University of California, 2002), a finalist for a National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A collection of essays and interviews, The Cracks Between What We Are and What We Are Supposed to Be, was published in 2012 by University of Alabama. In 2013, Graywolf published Urban Tumbleweed: Notes from a Tanka Diary. A critical edition of her poetry is forthcoming in 2024 from Edinburgh University. She teaches courses in American poetry, African American literature, and creative writing at UCLA.