It’s Monday and the high in Austin won’t get above 43 degrees
anywhere in the entire state today somewhere between
the humdrum scrubbing of the dried up dregs of my uneaten oats
of a breakfast now in the past and the choosing of a pair of boots
to wear for the class I will be teaching in the immediate future
I learn that Luke Perry is dead I don’t cry, but
I’m not unaffected Today in class we are supposed to talk about plot
I’m supposed to tell them how every story contains
a beginning a middle and an end and 99% of the time in that order
how the crisis comes right before the end with sometimes only a smidgen
of time left for the resolution the neat tying up of loose end instead I want
to walk into class and with dying erasable marker scrawl it all ends in death
on the board and walk out I mean of course it does I’m in high school
years away from sex and have no boyfriend so I pretend Dylan McKay is mine
he thinks it’s cool that I’m on the color guard and wear glasses and spend
my Friday nights writing poetry each week I watch the unfurling
of the delicate volcano that is “Dylan and Brenda” through a thousand tiny pixels
from the second floor of our suburban home in semi-rural Illinois away
from the others in my own world where I can smush through the tv screen
climb onto the back of Dylan’s bike and feel the hard promise of his black leather jacket
against my slender pale arms as I mold and loose myself into him his mouth
is a world I want to invade his eyes two pools of lightning quicksand
a generation of girls will never quite escape In class I ask the students
to name the major plot points including the inciting incident and climax
of the story we have just read what I really want to ask them is
now tell me everything that happens between those points
where does the author leave a conflict unresolved
what moments chisel a scar onto the protagonist’s still beating heart?
READ MORE
How Luke Perry’s death is a wake-up call for Generation X [Today]
Luke Perry, in ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’ Helped Redefine the Male Love Interest [IndieWire]
Luke Perry, ‘Beverly Hills 90210’ Star, Dies at 52 [New York Times]
Aimee Mackovic is a poet and professor of English currently living in Austin, Texas. Her work has appeared in journals such as Main Street Rag, Gravel, and Shark Reef, among others. She was the featured poet of Issue 9 of UCity Review. Her chapbooks include Potpourri and Dearly Beloved: the Prince poems. Her debut collection, Love Junky, was released in October 2017. Obsessions include traveling, buying used books, Prince, the color purple, her rescue dog, and Broadway musical soundtracks.
Editorial art by Elle Aviv Newton.
