by Ashley Martucci
Men have always been an acquisition Merely a win in a claw machine I would’ve named any one of these cheap toys By the same name And I would’ve treated him as sweet You see it does not matter What the claw grasps As your hands hold the joystick just the same You will soon be cradling the frail pet You will care for him as your own Feed Clothe Love tenderly Speak to him softly beneath the harvest moonlight You will lose him Drop him through the subway grate Toss him too high into the wind Mock him deep into the powerful blue You will find him He is every bubble in the sink He is resting on every bed of pollen blown in the breeze He is every dead fish, encasing the surface in sweet sulfur You will win him. You will empty your pockets of tight change At every arcade along every abandoned cape You will show him off, of course, they’re proud of this However plastic, you had won. I urge you to save your quarters.
About the Contributor & Piece
Ashley Martucci (she/her) is an English and Literary Studies Major at Ramapo College. Ashley is a transfer student, completing her degree to become a Librarian. She is a DJ for WRPR and frequents the Women’s Center. Ashley enjoys writing, playing guitar, and watching movies. Her favorite poem is Stepping Backward by Adrienne Rich.
“I wrote BOXED IN GLASS FOR GOOD REASON when I felt alienated repetitively in my heterosexual relationships. I felt the responsibility of motherhood weigh in, where it simply had no place. I felt repetitiveness in the structure of finding and losing a man. Each experience was further from love than the last. Throughout the poem, I reference claw machines, the art of losing change, and the catch and release of a fish—all merely motions.” – Ashley Martucci