A.M. Goodhart

CONTACT:
Website: amgoodhart.com          

BIO:
A.M. Goodhart received their MFA at Western Michigan University. They have published poems in Electric Literature's The Commuter, Passenger's Journal, and Lake Effect. Their collection Neither Kind of Body was a semi-finalist for the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize at BOA Editions and the Pamet River Prize at Yes Yes Books. They live in Madison, Wisconsin with Molly Grue (the dog) and Garrett Merz (the human).

Poetry

Alligator Mound

In the center of a suburb, on a street with a French name,
surrounded by McMansions housing blondes,
sits the alligator mound like a beast in a Victorian zoo
we can climb it like a foam-covered sculpture in the mall

mound,
if formal, burial mound—
but no stretch of our language will say cemetery,
or sacred.

There were once hundreds of mounds on this part of the world:
a doctor in my hometown built a mansion on one
I was whisked past a mound in rush hour
cursed the one in the middle of my jogging trail

Poor God—we’re always shoveling words into their mouth
god said go to war, god said go west, build a starbucks,
god said it is sinful to be poor, to be ugly, to be fat

when any God worth their salt would say nothing,
or if feeling loquacious, they would say—
wrapping their mouth around our strange language—
listen, or even better, be still.