Detachment
Alex MacConochie

He thought they had chemistry. They only
Shared the same dislikes for different reasons

And a good friend she’d been sleeping with.
That’s it, he’d later claim. She taught him

How to pull apart a pomegranate  
Underwater, movements as abrupt

And sharp as her opinions (he’d spend
The whole summer trying to prove her wrong

About a pompous prick) or small wave
Goodbye, down at the waist, a hieroglyph

For sadness takes a part of every perfect scene
Or: I was with him at the party, when

B said man, you’re back together, why? And Z sips
His beer, pauses, drawls got to admit she’s

Just great in the sack, and up close you could hear
His own laugh break him open, cold gush of shame,

Nervously braying you do what you gotta right (to
Hang with real men). I knew what he’d betrayed

I felt, but we all put on the same hard show.
When she came back for more seeds, the sink

Full of blood, and smiled thanks he wondered
Did she hear it—and I opened up the drain.

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Alex MacConochie is completing a PhD in English at Boston University, where he also co-directs a theater company devoted to the plays of Shakespeare's lesser-known contemporaries. His poems have appeared in Cargo, Stonecoast Review, The Fredericksburg Literary and Arts Review, and elsewhere.