Thomas March
Mary Agnes would watch
my uncle and my dad
while their parents were down
at the tavern, drinking.
It wouldn’t take them long
—running around the house
shouting and breaking things
that she could be blamed for—
to urge Mary Agnes
down to the bar herself,
where she would say, if asked,
that the boys were asleep.
Before leaving, she’d pop
her glass eye out, set it
on the kitchen table,
and say, “I’m watching you.
So behave.” And it worked
until they figured out
they could turn it around.
Thomas March is a poet, performer, and critic based in New York City. Aftermath, his first poetry collection, was selected by Joan Larkin for The Word Works Hilary Tham Capital Collection and appeared in April 2018. His poetry has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, The Good Men Project, OUT, Pleiades, and RHINO, among others. His reviews and essays have appeared in The Believer, The Huffington Post, and New Letters. With painter Valerie Mendelson, he is the co-creator of A Good Mixer, a textual-visual hybrid project based on a 1933 bartender’s guide of the same name; excerpts from the project have already been included in curated shows at Westbeth Gallery and The Delaware Valley Arts Alliance.
He is the host and curator of Poetry/Cabaret, a new performance series that brings together the city’s top poets, comedians, and cabaret performers for a hybrid evening of emotional whiplash in response to a common theme. A past recipient of the Norma Millay Ellis Fellowship in Poetry, from the Millay Colony for the Arts, he has also received an Artist/Writer grant from The Vermont Studio Center. In recent years, he has written and performed monologues at a number of venues in New York City, including Ars Nova, The Duplex, Joe’s Pub, The Peoples Improv Theater, and Sid Gold’s Request Room. Twitter: @realthomasmarch, Web: www.thomasmarch.org
