“His shoulder next to my shoulder / is warm pressure communication”

The Laurel Review
vol. 50, no. 2
10 October 2017
All about a man, an unbelievable man. An imaginary man?
My poem “My Unbelievable Man” was published in the latest issue of The Laurel Review and it’s my first poem in print (and now available online, too)! I received my contributor copies in the mail this week. The experience of reading one of my poems in a physical paper journal is surprisingly different than reading it in a digital document or online. I’m not really sure how to describe it except that the journal has heft that makes the poem feel more real and very special.
What a beautiful cover!
I wrote the poem last July, revised it a few times, and submitted it to potential journals last August. Before I had heard back from all of them, I revised the poem yet again, something I really don’t recommend doing. I thought that the new version was better, but when The Laurel Review accepted it, I was reluctant to ask if they would consider a new version instead. It’s a good thing I didn’t ask; comparing the two versions now, I like the earlier and now published version a lot better.
04 September 2023 Update: Since the poem is no longer available online and the issue might be difficult to come by, I have reprinted the poem below.
To see a man My man Invisible man I plan accidentally to meet every day I attend activity with pre-hour jitters having imagined our meeting My man Really a man how we proceed cloy as romantic meet cute comedy and just as sentimental a flutter ahead of time My man The disappearing men how fleeting in reality His shoulder next to my shoulder is warm pressure communication My man We're discussing my man the color of his eyes His indescribable eyes the hair on his chest earth scent human electricity his hands to hold heft and weigh me My man Indescribable man An unbelievable man With nothing to show for My man this makes either of us not A man Vanishes
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