Morgan Parker

Morgan Parker is a poet, essayist, and novelist. She is the author of the young adult novel Who Put This Song On?; and the poetry collections Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night, There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé, and Magical Negro, which won the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award. Parker’s debut book of nonfiction is forthcoming from One World. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, winner of a Pushcart Prize, and has been hailed by The New York Times as “a dynamic craftsperson” of “considerable consequence to American poetry.” Source

Heaven Be a Xanax

When people say how are you

I say good

It is a rule no one can answer

Crying in The Gap by my therapist’s office

or I am still angry with my parents

for traumatizing me

through organized sports

Dangerous and satisfying body of water

I can almost remember heaven

or Still a woman slaughtered for wonder

or Unfortunately misplaced grip

I am not doing a good job waiting

When I get to heaven I’m going

to wear my good bra

so no one can stay mad at me

I won’t have any feelings to hurt just

cheeseburgers on cheeseburgers on

deep colored slumber

Just men offering their golden bodies

And I will take the offering on my tongue

And it will not be a vault

And someone will not invade me

And I will kneel to pray

And I will address the prayer to myself

And I will be allowed

Published:

2016

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Contemporary

Anthology Years:

2021

Themes:

Faith & Hope

Health & Illness

Music & Sports